THE Department of State Services has arrested and detained a 40-year-old man, Mohammed Momoh, for allegedly using the name of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Chief of Staff to defraud an unsuspecting Nigerian of the sum of $50,000.
The suspect was arrested in a sting operation by the DSS when he went to collect the money from his ‘victim’, Benson Aniego.
The Public Relations Officer of the DSS, Peter Afunanya, while parading the suspect at the DSS headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday, said Momoh was the head of a syndicate specialising in dropping the names of senior government officials to fleece unsuspecting Nigerians in the name of helping them to secure phantom positions in and outside the government.
According to the DSS Spokesman, Momoh once worked as an aide to a Presidency official.
In this particular operation, he said he presented himself as an aide to the Chief of Staff and demanded the sum of $50,000 from Benson Aniego, a native of Bayelsa State, to get him an appointment as the President’s Special Assistant on Oil and Gas.
He reportedly told his target that out of the $50,000, $35,000 would go to the Chief of Staff while the balance would be used by other facilitators to get him the post.
The DSS spokesman said, “We arrested Prince Momoh in a sting operation conducted on July 28, 2020 and we want to alert the public that the syndicate has no connection whatsoever with the Chief of Staff to the President or any other official of the government at any level.
“The head of the syndicate, Momoh, only exploited his former position as an aide to a top Presidency official and started to defraud unsuspecting Nigerians. He has no relationship with any Presidential official as we speak.”
“That is why we are pleading with Nigerians to desist from falling victims to fraudsters who continue to drop the names of top government officials for pecuniary gains. We will continue to fish them out and expose them for what they are: fraudsters and nothing more,” he added.
Momoh confessed that he only collected a curriculum vitae from someone he wanted to help to secure a job but did not know he would end up in what he called an ‘unfortunate situation’.
The DSS said the suspect would be charged while others on the run would also be nabbed.
