Date Published: 07/03/09

EFCC Docks Grandma, 2 Others over N17m Fraud

At last, the long arms of the law has caught up with a 60- year old woman, Mrs. Grace Iroro as she was on Thursday, July2, 2009 arraigned alongside two others before Justice Mufutau Olokooba of the Lagos High Court, Ikeja, on a 5-count charge bordering on conspiracy, forgery, uttering and attempt to obtain money by false pretences. Other accused persons were Messrs Ayo Disu and Uzor Nnaji. Justice Olokooba after taking the pleas of the accused persons ordered them remanded in prison custody till July 8 when their case would come up for hearing.

The arraignment could have been done before now but Mrs.Iroro had jumped bail and it was not possible to arraign others without her. She was finally nabbed somewhere in Itire area of Lagos last week.

The accused persons were first arrested at the premises of a new generation bank while trying to cash a cheque of N17million purportedly for the purchase of a plot of land at Lekki.Acording to investigation report, Madam Iroro and other members of her syndicate impersonated one Mr. Samuel Adetobi Sosanya, the rightful owner of Plot 2 Block 71, Lekki Peninsula residential scheme 1 and attempted to sell the land to a top official of a new generation bank in Victoria Island.

But the deal went awry when the banker mentioned the transaction to one of his friends as he was about to pay the money. His friend told him that he had just been duped over the same property. At this juncture the banker alerted the EFCC. And as the accused persons entered the bank to cash the cheque they were arrested.

Upon arrest, they confessed that they actually forged the Certificate of Occupancy presented to the prospective buyer of the property in order to convince him that the transaction was genuine. While Disu acted as Mr. Sosanya, Madam Iroro posed as Mrs. Sosanya. She claimed that she was promised 5 percent of the N17million as reward for the role she played, while Uzor procured the fake C of O.

The accused persons were granted administrative bail by the EFCC and asked to be reporting periodically at the Lagos office of the commission pending the time the investigation would be completed. The other accused persons were reporting as directed but Madam Iroro vanished into thin air. She changed her residential address and her phone numbers. But luck failed her early last week when one operative sighted her walking along a street in Itire, Lagos.

She and her co- travelers are now cooling their heels in Kirikiri prisons.