Notorious 419 kingpin ends up in police net - Over N9m fake bank draft

Adelowo Oladipo, Lagos

Last Wednesday, when a notorious fraudster and ex-jailbird, Alabi Dawodu (a.k.a Alabi motors)
drove in a Jeep into the premises of Oil Force Limited, a subsidiary of Capital oil and Gas at Ibru Jetty Apapa area of Lagos State and demanded to procure 132,000 litres of Automotive Gas Oil, otherwise known as diesel, hardly did the management and staff of the company suspect any foul play.

The suspect, now in police cell at the Force Criminals Investigation Department Annex, Alagbon Ikoyi Lagos had also demanded for the company’s bank account with a view to paying the agreed total cost of the dieser into it after a bargain had been reached between him and the company.

Crime File further gathered that thereafter, the light-complexioned 419 kingpin quickly made a fake bank draft of the sum of nine million, one hundred and seventy four thousand naira (N9,174,000.00) in favour of the company which is a subsidiary of Capital Oil and gas limited for four trailer loads of AGO of 33,000 litres each.

It was also revealed that the suspect allegedly tendered a bank certified cheque of one of the new generation banks (name witheld) teller deposit notification, indicating that he had paid the money into the bank’s airport branch Ikeja, area of state.

Some insider police sources however informed the Crime File that no sooner than the suspect presented the deposit notification teller that he contracted one transporter, identified as Mohammed Jubril to assist him in looking for trucks to convey the products to his destination.

The source who craved for anonymity in a chat with Crime File said that based on the agreement between the suspect and the said transporter (Jubril), the following three trucks marked: KD148KTU, CF 3431ABJ, KT439KTA were brought for the loading of the Ago from the depot of capital oil and gas to Alabi’s non-existing company, Alabi Dawodu and his accomplice allegedly used the fake bank draft to book for the petroleum product. One of the trucks was eventually loaded and taken away to an unknown destination by one of the truck drivers and motor boy simply identified as Abass.

Crime File learnt that precisely on October 15, 2007, barely six days after the serial criminal had presented the bank draft to the company, the bank officials were said to have called and alerted the company that it had fallen victim of Advanced fee fraud (a.k.a 419) practitioners as they informed the complainant that the draft and the teller, presented the company by the suspect were after all fake and forged.

Meanwhile, the popular saying that everyday is for the thief while one day is for the owner became manifest on the fateful day as the suspect pretended as if nothing had gone wrong and drove in his usual state of the art car (Jeep) and demanded to load the remaining three trucks of AGO during which he was promptly arrested alongside his accomplice driver, while their valuables were equally impounded by the police.

Crime File further learnt that in the course of interrogation, the unrepentant 419 kingpin made useful confession to the police. He was quoted to have said that he and his comrade in crime conspired and forged the bank draft to defraud the oil company.

“In fact I was introduced to the unwholesome act by one other ex-jail bird nicknamed Mandela,” said the suspect.

Similarly, in a brief chat with Crime File, Dawodu explained that in 2005, the said Mandela, now at large, had given him a forged bank draft to buy some cars and several goods, adding that at that period, they both succeeded in buying one Toyota Landcruiser Jeep, a KIA Jeep and one truck with the forged bank draft.

In his word: "I was eventually arrested by police detectives attached to Lagos State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, Yaba where all the vehicles were recovered from me and the case file taken to Magistrate Court 4, Ebute-Metta in Oyingbo, Lagos Mainland Local Government Development Authority, where I was sentenced to a jail term.”