Chinonso Akumefuna, a driver in Lagos, has accused Coker Dare, a Lagos-based travel agent, of refusing to refund his N1.1 million after obtaining a fake visa for him.

The driver told FIJ that Dare assured him he could get a non-appearance visa from the Netherlands Embassy in Abuja because he had an insider in the embassy, but ended up swindling him.

He said Dare also told him in October 2022 that he would only be paid after he secured the visa for the sum of N1.5 million, which he agreed to.

“Three days after I agreed with Dare on the price of the visa, he sent me an image of a visa on WhatsApp. He immediately started pressuring me to pay him. In fact, he threatened to arrest the person who introduced me to him if I failed to pay,” Akumefuna told FIJ.

Akumefuna said due to the pressure Dare mounted on him and the friend who introduced him to the agent, he had to pay N500,000 in October while he paid the balance in November.

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“After I paid him the first N500,000, I told him I would pay up the balance upon confirmation of the true status of the visa. I told him we would go to the Ikeja Airport to verify, and he agreed,” he said.

“When we got to the airport, Dare called an immigration officer and asked me to transfer N5,000 to him for verification. The man told me in person that the visa was genuine. After then, I paid the remaining N1 million.”

Akumefuna said he became suspicious of Dare when a person he referred discovered that, despite doing everything Dare asked him to do, he was given a fake visa.

He said he paid Dare N700,000 to help him book his flight to the Netherlands because he learned that he could do it.

Akumefuna said Dare told him he could not leave for the Netherlands from Lagos directly but would have to find his way to Abuja because the embassy was in Abuja.

Akumefuna said he booked a flight from Lagos to Abuja and waited for the departure date, only to find out he had been scammed.

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“My flight was on December 3. The departure time was 1:15 pm, but I went to the airport very early. When I went to the Ethiopian Airlines stand to get a boarding pass, I was told the visa was fake,” he said.

“The officers seized my passport and kept asking me how I got the visa. I was fortunate that I was not arrested. I immediately called Dare to inform him of the mess he put me in, but he was pleading.

“I told Dare to refund the money for the visa and ticket (N2.2 million) and that I would bear the loss of other funds I spent during the process, but he only refunded a million naira.”

Akumefuna also said Dare blocked his line and has refused to communicate with him ever since.

When FIJ called Dare, he said he was only a middleman between Akumefuna and those who did the visa.

“I was a victim of the visa collection process, and I have been trying to get them to refund the money,” he said. But he would not say who issued the visa.

He said he was not really to blame because the visa business had too many channels.