Ejerika Jeremiah, Joint Universities Preliminary Examinations Board, JUPEG undergraduate in one of the Universities, Delta State, has reportedly scammed students in the same institution the sum of N15 million, which he thereafter invested into his personal dogs breeding business.
Superintendent of Police Bright Edafe, and spokesman of the Nigeria police Command in Delta State, confirmed the arrest of the Course Rep in an online broadcast, Weekend.
Jeremiah, was arrested, according to him, following complaints to police authority by some of the scammed victims nimbering over 60 student the sum of #250,000 each, totalling about N15 million which he diverted a substantial part of it for his personal use, according to the police spokesman.
In the now trending video, the police spokesman said the suspect, offered to assist vulnerable students in the unnamed tertiary institution to pay their tuitions and other charges through online registrations.
Edafe said, “My advice to student, please learn to be digitally inclined, pay your fees yourself or meet a known staff for guidance”.
He alleged that the criminal suspect, posed as a Course Representative to other students who met him in the school after gaining their trust, before commiting the crime.
Giving insight into police investigation, some of the defrauded students most of whom are females, alleged that they learned of the fraud when the school’s management drew their stated that they were indebted to the school.
Jeremiah who claimed to have personally paid his own school fees, but leveraged on the vulnerability of others who had difficulties at that time to pay their fees online, occasioned by the network glitches.
Despite that, he went to his Bank to lodge a complaint with a view to resolve the issue, after the money was paid into his account by students, before it was thereafter reverted, before his lid was blown open by security agents.
Speaking on the level of his alleged involvement in the crime, Jeremiah said, “I never had the intention to defraud the students initially”.
“When I trying to help the students to make school fees payments, most of them went successfully, but some others hanged.
“At a point in time, I went to my Bank to resolve the problem. But, it failed.
“I paid my school fees when the portal was up, but I didn’t pay for others. I used part of the money to buy dogs, while I squandered the rest. I have sold most of the dogs”, Jeremiah stated in an interview.
In their separate interviews with the police, the victims of fraud, who craved anonymity, said they lost between 250,000 and 280,000 to the fraudster.
One of the male victims, “I met Jeremiah in JUPEG programme where he helped me to resolve my network issue on the payment app. I gained his trust personally, before I gave him the sum of N210,000 to pay for my two terms school fees”.
Also speaking, two female students, name withheld, alleged that they lost the sum of N256,000 to the suspect while another female claimed that she gave Jeremiah the sum of N280,000 to pay her tuition fees, but sad that the suspect could not account for the money.
