Fresh facts have emerged regarding the identity of the lady who impersonated Nigerian pop star, Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun, aka Wizkid on social media and defrauded the singer’s fans.
It had been reported that the Lagos State Police Command had arrested the 19-year-old girl, Ifeoma Nelly, who reportedly defrauded many people of over $65,000, equivalent of about N12.9million.
Her arrest reportedly came after the singer complained to the police commissioner that someone had been impersonating him and collecting money for shows.
The police swung into action and the 19-year-old was apprehended.
Nelly is said to be a student of Industrial Chemistry at the Delta State University.
She was reportedly arrested through the combined efforts of Wizkid’s Manager, Mr. Sunday Are, policemen from Lagos and an Australian.
According to the statement by the singer’s manger, the suspected fraudster was arrested when she came to Lagos to collect part payment of $25,000 from some Australians at a hotel in Lagos, so that Wizkid would go to Australia to perform.
Before the suspect used to collect payment via electronic, but because she was desperate to get her hands on the $25,000, she decided to meet the Australian.
Revealing how the suspect was arrested, the statement said, “The lady said she had been posing on Facebook and defrauding people for three years, using Wizkid.”
“Nelly, when asked if she had other members assisting her, insisted that she was the only one running the show.
“She has collected money from different people. If you don’t have evidence against her, she would deny it but if you show her evidence, she would tell you the truth. There was the case of the $53,000, which we had to refund to the owner. She confirmed that she was the one who collected it.
“There was another payment of $12,500 from Germany. The Germany people sent details of how they paid the money to her. She couldn’t deny it.
“We had to start refunding money to different victims when the nefarious activities of the suspect became embarrassing.
“We had been having problems with different clients because of this. We keep refunding all the money. It was an issue.
“When it became serious, we had to refund the money to victims. Some people will just go, write in papers that Wikzid disappointed them. They would say Wizkid and his manager collected money and didn’t come to perform.
Meanwhile, we didn’t know about those shows. The lady, not only use Wizkid’s name to open the Facebook accounts, but also used Wizkid’s name to register the phone she was using.
“Whenever someone calls her or she calls someone, its Wizkid’s name that would show.
“True caller shows Wizkid. We need everybody to help us fight this. We’ve started working towards doing something about the fake accounts.
“I and Wizkid went to Zambia for a show. We were there when I received a call from some people in Australia. The caller said he wanted to know if he was speaking with Sunday Are, Wizkid’s manager. The Australian said that he had been speaking with someone, pretending to be Are.
“The Australian said that he had almost concluded negotiation for Wizkid to come to Australia to perform and was just about to pay $25,000 part payment, when he heard that Wizkid was in Zambia.
“They said someone wanted to collect money from them in Lagos, Nigeria, for Wizkid to come and perform. They now found out that I was in Zambia.
“I planned with them on how to make this arrest. I talked to them to convince the suspect to come and collect cash in a hotel in Lagos. That was how I managed to arrest her.
“She came along with two friends. They were two ladies and a guy. She looked like a guy.
“It took us three to four hours before we could believe she was a lady. She wore native clothes and spotted low cut, like she is Sunday Are. She wore Rolex wrist watch. She bought clothes for the lady that came with her because that one said she didn’t have any clothes good enough to wear to come and collect the money.
“The arrest happened in a hotel in Lagos.
“I planted policemen inside the hotel room. The people gave the lady an Australian number, saying the Australian didn’t have a Nigerian number.
“Everything looked genuine. The show was to be in Australia, the phone number was an Australian number and the man she was speaking with, was a white man. But the man was actually in Australia, directing them to come to the hotel to collect cash.
“They entered the room and we arrested them,” he added.
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