Published 5th Oct, 2021

By Emmanuel Uti

Balogun Shina, a 25-year-old student, has been extorted by police officers at Ojota, Lagos, to the tune of N301,000 for having a Binance app on his phone.

Shina, 25, was on his way to Ogba on a Bolt trip at about 11am on Tuesday when police officers stopped the car and began to harass him.

Before the officers signalled to the driver to park at a spot, Shina had already told the driver that he was a cigarette smoker with a lighter in his pocket.

“When the officers saw me, they asked why I was with a lighter. Then they began to slap me, saying I must have killed someone before now,” he said.

The officers asked him to unlock his phone. Seeing that he owned an iPhone 12 pro, they beat him and levied false allegations against him. Shina unlocked his phone after a series of slaps.

On unlocking his phone, the officers found Binance app. Immediately, they tagged him an internet fraudster.

“They even said they would take me to the Special Fraud Unit at Ikoyi because I was responsible for the death of someone whose name I did not quite know,” Shina explained.

“The one with my phone checked my account and saw less than N10,000 in it. He then said I must have hidden my money elsewhere.”

Shina explained to the officers that he was late for an appointment with an educational consultant who would help process his admission abroad, but the officers were not willing to listen. Rather, they insisted that he must pay them.

“My girlfriend even called at some point but they told her to forget about me as they would take me to a place where she wouldn’t see me again,” he explained.

“Seeing things could escalate, one of the men began to call an account number and told me to note it elsewhere as I would transfer some money to them,” Shina said.

“When I figured these men would not let me go except I bribed them, I offered to pay N50,000. But they insisted it was too small. They said if I failed to pay N300,000, they would take me to the SFU and claim I killed someone.

“I had no choice but to ask a friend to send me N300,000 to pay them. The N300,000 was a part of the money I had saved with her for my education.

“When I received a credit alert, they immediately ordered that I transferred it to them. I eventually transferred N301,000 to them.”

Shina explained that the account number he transferred to was a corporate account named C. M. Enterprises. However, a search on the Corporate Affairs Commission’s website revealed that that there are many businesses with similar names across the country.

FIJ placed a call to CSP Adekunle Ajisebutu, the Lagos Police Public Relations Officer, but it was not answered. He also did not respond to an SMS sent to his phone.

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