Traders at Warewa community, in the Obafemi Owode LGA of Ogun State, have been thrown into pain and confusion after a ‘wonder bank’ operator, identified as Ngozi Adline, defrauded them of their hard earned money.
Adline, an Imo State indigene, allegedly swindled traders in the community out of over N2m.
According to Punch, Adline operated under the name Link M Investment Limited, where she had two workers, Oluwatoyin Adebayo and Esther Adelanwa, who go out to collect money from customers.
Adline fled in August 2016 with the N2m collected from some residents of the area. One of the workers, Adebayo, said the fraud was reported at the Warewa Police Station. “We collected money for her (Adline) daily and weekly from customers.
She promised to give those that wanted to save for three months five to 10% interest. We started in April and everything went well, while our customers were satisfied. However, after about four months, we started having problems with the customers.
The issue was that at the end of that month, she refused to bring money for disbursement to customers that needed loans and wanted to collect their savings with interest.
Sometime in August 2016, she absconded with over N2m. We are the ones that the customers know; they don’t really know her. So, we have been struggling to refund them. She has put us in trouble. She is from Imo State.
Policemen followed us to her residence in Ibafo, where we were told that she had relocated. A pepper seller, Jubril Awalu, said he saved about N50,000 at the firm, noting that he also needed the money to boost his trade.
The Ogun State Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Abimbola Oyeyemi, said it was difficult for the police to track down the woman as her operation was not formal.
Punch
