Visa Scam: EFCC Arraigns 5 Suspects

PHOTO: EFCC CHAIRMAN, FARIDA WAZIRI.

An end appears to have come for five young men whose area of business is to dupe United Kingdom (UK) visa applicants as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC Wednesday January 20 in Lagos arraigned them before Justice Olubunmi Oyewole of an Ikeja High Court.

The five accused persons namely: Oji Chinedu Nelsiline, Adesina Yaya, Ola Parry, Sunday Okewu and Stanley Njoku pleaded not guilty to the 19-count charge bordering on conspiracy, obtaining by false pretence and forgery leveled against them.

One of the charges reads that Orji Nelsile aka Johnson William Vickz and Adesina Yaya on or about the 20^th day of August, 2009 within the Lagos judicial division with intent to defraud, and obtain money by false pretence from Majero Solape Felicia forged a United Kingdom visa No. UK645949K dated 20^th August 2009 purportedly issued by the UK High Commission.

After their pleas were taken, the trial judge adjourned the case to January 28, to take arguments for their bail application while he fixed February 25 and 26 for trial. He thereafter ordered that the accused persons be remanded in prison custody.

They began their journey into the EFCC net last August when one of their victims, Majero Solape Felicia, who is a travel agent, lost a total sum of N2.38million to their tricks. She fell into the syndicate’s trap when she went to the UK High Commission in Lagos to book interview appointment for some of her clients.

When she got there, she met the second accused person, Yaya who was the ‘catcher for the group’, who told the unsuspecting woman that he could help her get visa appointment without sweats. The travel agent swallowed the bait hook, line and sinker after which Yaya introduced her to the first accused, Nelsine who told the victim that he was an Embassy official that he would not only help her to procure UK visa but that he would also help her to procure Schengen visas if she could pay certain fees. Desperate to get the visas for her customers, she agreed and started paying the money as demanded.

At that point, the third accused person, Parry came into the picture. The first accused opened an account with the name Johnson William Viokz of consular section, British High Commission, at a new generation bank with Parry signing for him as a guarantor. Okewu who came in as the fourth accused person was an account officer with the bank where he opened the account without following the procedure while the fifth accused person, Njoku went to procure a fake drivers’ license in order to catch a cheque for the first accused person from the account.

After all perfecting their tricks, they collected seven different International Passports from the victim, and thereafter went to the notorious Oluwole market in Lagos to forge Visas to different European countries and gave the woman.

She thanked them and promised to bring more businesses to them without knowing that she had been conned. The cat was let out of the bag when one of the owners of the International Passports wanted to travel with the visa only to discover at the last hour that it was a fake visa. He told the travel agent who, to her surprise also discovered that all the visas were fake. She promptly reported the case to the EFCC and the accused persons were arrested.