See the 'Fufu' Phone Sold to a Customer in Computer Village, Lagos (Photo)

 

An unscrupulous phone seller, Samson Adebiyi, 24 at the popular Computer Village in Ikeja, Lagos has met his waterloo after the long arms of the law caught up with him. He was arrested by the officials of the Lagos State Taskforce on Environmental and Special Offences (Enforcement) Unit on Wednesday, 9th of September for conning one Semiu Ambali who arranged his arrest.

 

The suspect allegedly sold a fake phone stuffed with cassava flour (fufu) to the unsuspecting buyer at the Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria. This is not the first time an issue like this is coming up. Scammers of his class tend to attract buyers with relatively cheap prices.

 

According to Adebiyi, those selling fufu phones to unsuspecting buyers are many at the Computer Village.

The syndicates usually have several phones on them and do not have shops at the Computer Village. They approach a customer and display their phones and once that customer is interested, they bring out the particular phone the person wants to buy, remove the battery, test it so that the customer can be sure it is okay.

In the process of the customer being distracted, the seller quickly replaces it with another phone (but of the same brand). The only difference is that the battery of the fake phone is replaced with fufu.

Once the unsuspecting buyer accepts the phone and pays, the sellers relocate to another part of the market where no one could see them and play the same tricks on others. On this occasion, Ambali was shown the phone he wanted to buy by Adebiyi, who agreed to sell the phone at N8,000.

According to him, the phone was tested and certified okay and that at the moment he was distracted, the phone was replaced with a fufu phone and that he only realised this when he got home.

The following day, he spent almost the whole day looking for the suspected swindler and as luck would have it, he caught up with him and alerted the security operatives.

Instead of grabbing him, he decided to play the same game all over again with him. He agreed to pay N4,000 for another phone that had been tested and certified okay by Adebiyi. He pretended to be distracted, only for the fake phone syndicate to exchange it with another fufu phone.

It was then the taskforce officials who were lurking around, grabbed Adebiyi and took him to their office and detained him. He confessed to the crime which he attributed to hardship.

 

He is being prepared to appear in the court of law very soon.