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February 27, 2024
Peter and Dayo, both realtors, were stopped on July 14, 2021 while driving along the Ikoyi/Ajah Expressway by a team of police officers in mufti led by Austin, who adopted a fictitious name “Osas”.
A policewoman with force number 14534, Cordelia Nwawe, who was involved in the extortion of N22million worth of Bitcoin from two young Nigerians in Lagos State in 2021 has now been promoted to the rank of a Superintendent of Police, SaharaReporters has gathered.
Nwawe, then Deputy Superintendent of Police had while she was attached to Force Criminal Investigation Department Annex, with one Inspector Austin at gunpoint extorted money from the two young Nigerians, Morakinyo Tobiloba Peter and Yusuf Samson Dayo.
Peter and Dayo, both realtors, were stopped on July 14, 2021 while driving along the Ikoyi/Ajah Expressway by a team of police officers in mufti led by Austin, who adopted a fictitious name “Osas”.
The duo had narrated to SaharaReporters how they were treated like criminals while Nwanue asked her subordinate to kill them if they cannot pay N20million as bail.
"We were driving on the Ikoyi/Ajah Expressway precisely at 1004 on the 14th of July 2021, when a team of police officers in mufty accosted us and ordered us to park. We parked and the police officers jumped into the car and ordered us to open our phones.
“Since we have nothing to hide, we gave them our phones and they found nothing incriminating. To our surprise, they ordered us to drive down to their office, we insisted we must know our offences before we can move down to the station. But the police officers descended on us and beat us for disobedience. They claimed we were too fresh not to be a fraudster. We begged them and showed them that we are realtors. We gave them our identity cards and showed them some of our ongoing projects but they insisted we were fraudsters.
“When we got to the police station at FCID Annex, Alagbon Close, Lagos, we were quickly pushed into the cell and they went away with our mobile phones. The police officers returned some hours later and told us we were trading in Bitcoins,” one of them had told SaharaReporters.
“Before we know it, they started beating us and calling us Yahoo boys, we told them we were not Yahoo boys. We explained that we are realtors and it was because of the decline in naira that we converted our money into bitcoin, but they kept beating us and they said we should write statement around 8:00pm in the night.”
The duo had added that the statements written by them were torn into pieces by the policemen while they were forced to sign another ones written by the officers alleging that they were Internet fraudsters.
“We wrote the statements and they tore it into pieces and wrote another statement for us and forced us to sign it. We did signed the statement and they took them before their boss, DSP Cordelia Nwawe with force number 145341, Admin section, FCID Annex, Alagbon Lagos,” they added.
“Mrs Nwawe asked her officers what happened and they narrated the whole story to her, they told her we are Yahoo boys which we denied and the woman said they should give us bail condition, they demanded N20million from us and when we said we don't have such amount of money, the woman said they should go and kill us if we insist we cannot pay them N20million as bail.
“Officer Austin who led the team also adopted a fictitious name so that people will not know his true name. He was addressed as Osas by DSP Uwanue, he was the one who took us to the cell and threatened to kill the two of us if we cannot transfer the N20million in bitcoin to them.
“So when he bought out his gun and was taking us out of the cell to kill us as ordered by her boss, DSP Uwanue, we now succumbed to him and said he should remove the money from our account, he insisted he wanted bitcoin and not naira, he provided another bitcoin account and he transferred N22million equivalent of bitcoin from our account.”
Few days after the report, the then Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, ordered an immediate investigation into the incident by setting up a Special Investigation Panel led by DCP Olaolu Adegbite.
Sources told SaharaReporters that the panel in its report indicted Nwawe and others.
“The panel then did a discreet and transparent investigation into the allegation and found them wanting. The committee recommended different disciplinary actions against her but none was done.
“I doubt it even if the money extorted was returned. So what the police did was to move her to one of the Mobile Police Training schools, isn’t that funny? Such character inducted for such extortion is now charge with training of young officers, it’s very laughable.
“She’s now a Superintendent of Police as well, she was promoted in 2023, a year after such allegation and indictment," a top source revealed.