A man has been apprehended in the Anifowoshe area of Ikeja, Lagos, after tricking two egg sellers with fake bank transfer alerts to buy crates of eggs.
Eyewitnesses said the suspect, a security guard struggling to pay his wife’s hospital bills, admitted to editing text messages on his phone to create false transfer receipts.
Our correspondent gathered that he showed the fake alerts to the sellers and claimed the money had been sent, blaming network issues whenever the sellers failed to receive actual payments.
The bubble burst yesterday when some residents raised the alarm about the man’s suspicious activities. The first victim, an egg seller, said she sold two crates of eggs worth about N12,000 before realising the transfer alert shown to him was fake.
“This man bought two crates of eggs and showed me a transfer receipt on his phone. He said he had transferred and stayed on Abeokuta Street in Anifowoshe.
Even though I didn’t get the alert, I trusted him because I knew someone there, so I told him he could go, and when she saw the alert, she would inform him. If the transfer was unsuccessful, he could come back and try again.
The second victim, who spoke anonymously, recounted how the man came to her shop to buy eggs, saying, “The boy in this community raised the alarm about the man. This person tried to cheat me. I sold two crates of eggs to him, worth about N12,000.
The suspect, who said his wife had just given birth and had no money on him to offset bills, added, “I am trying to arrange some money for my wife. She just gave birth, and there is no money with me.”
When asked how he did it, he said, “I don’t use code. I only edit text messages from my phone and put the amount I want to send to the person. Therefore, the person won’t receive any message, but only see it from my phone. They will only see the receipt on my phone while I tell them I have sent the money, lying that they are not receiving it due to network issues.”
