Lawyer writes Buhari over ‘missing’ N100m, police ‘harassment’

A lawyer, Robert Emukpoeruo, has sought President Muhammadu Buhari’s intervention, following his client’s alleged arrest and detention by the police after he reported a case of N100 million fraud.
Emukpoeruo said his client, Mr. Uyiekpen Idugboe, a director of Stephen Idugboe and Sons Co. Ltd, was arrested, detained and denied access to his lawyer, at the Police Headquarters, Abuja, because he refused to disclose the source of his information.
He alleged that the police had refused to search the house or office of the main suspect in the matter, and had refused to carry on with the investigation.
Idugboe, he claimed, reported the fraud to the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) of the office of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Louis Edet House, Abuja.
He stated that Idugboe told the police that the company’s land measuring approximately 6, 637.073 square meters at Elf Road, Warri, Delta State, was sold to a firm for N250, 000,000.
But that, “with intent to defraud,” some directors of the company falsely represented to other directors of the company that the property was sold for N150,000,000, “less the various agency and concocted fees which was removed from the sale price.”
According to his client, the sum of over N100, 000,000 was passed through various bank accounts to conceal it from the other directors and shareholders.
He added that the actual purchase price of N250 million was concealed in the accounts of an estate surveyor and valuer.
An unauthorised fresh Stephen Idugboe & Sons Co. Ltd account was then opened “into which N137, 000,000 was paid to give the impression that this was the purchase price of the property.”
Emukpoeruo said the investigation of his client’s complaint was stopped by the police and he was detained “for over 48 hours” unless he revealed the source of the evidence of the fraud.
The police, he alleged, accused his client of hacking into a bank account to get the evidence of the fraud, even though “there was no statement whatsoever from the bank that it suffered any cyber-attack or crime at all.”