A 41-year-old bureau de change operator, Samuel Nduka, is in police net for allegedly defrauding an importer of N5.7m on the pretext of helping him to convert the money to dollars.

It was learnt that the businessman, Clement Okeke, had wanted to pay a business partner in China to facilitate the importation of some goods.

As a result of shortage of foreign currency for international business, Okeke was said to have gone to a bureau de change – High Flyers – office at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, sometime in October 2015, and met with one Chris, who introduced him to the suspect.

Newsmen  gathered that Nduka agreed to assist the complainant to convert the sum to dollars and pay same to Okeke’s partner in China.

Okeke reportedly paid the money to Nduka in three tranches between October 7 and 12 with a commission of N57,000.

The suspect, however, failed to remit $19,100, the dollar equivalent of the sum, as promised.

Our correspondent gathered that after several failed attempts by the businessman to retrieve the money from Nduka, he petitioned the Lagos State Police Command, leading to the suspect’s arrest.

“The suspect was arrested at his office on the MMIA premises, Ikeja. Upon interrogation, he admitted to collecting the money.

“Nduka claimed that his company sent the money on October 12, 2015 through two passengers – Ngene and Ojekwu – for onward delivery to China but that they were arrested at the airport by officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and charged to court for money laundering,” a police source said.

Another source revealed that the High Flyers’ secretary, identified simply as Juliet, confirmed to the police that she collected the money directly from Okeke and remitted same to the suspect.

The source said, “The secretary admitted that she collected the money from Okeke on behalf of the company and remitted it to the suspect at the close of work.

“She denied having knowledge of any case involving the EFCC as claimed by the suspect.”

Nduka was consequently arraigned before an Ikeja Magistrate’s Court by a police prosecutor, Sergeant Donjor Perezi, on three counts bordering on obtaining money under false pretences.

The charge read in part, “That you, Samuel Nduka, and others at large, on October 7 and 8, 2015, at about 2.30pm, at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, in the Lagos Magisterial District, did obtain the sum of N5,730,000 from one Clement Okeke, a representation you knew to be false, thereby committing an offence punishable under Section 312 (3) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.”

The defendant, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge and was granted bail by the presiding magistrate, Mrs. O. Olanipekun, in the sum of N1m with two sureties in like sum.

The case was adjourned till November 8, 2016.