7 October 2008
Lagos — Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arrested a pastor with Christ Embassy Church in Oregun, Lagos State, Dr. (Miss) Fregene Orighomisan Omawumi, for alleged fraudulent foreign exchange deal as well as issuing a dud cheque.
According to the EFCC, the said pastor who started by allegedly obtaining N3million from another member of the church in a fraudulent foreign exchange trade deal in April this year. It said about N1million has been recovered from her.
EFCC Head of Media and Publicity, Femi Babafemi, in a statement made available to Daily Champion in Abuja said the victim of the fraud, Mr. Afam Benneth Otiba, said the 33year-old administrative pastor, who is also a medical doctor, obtained the money from him on the pretext that she was going to invest it in online forex trading, promising a 100 per cent return on investment in 45 days.
Otiba said he agreed to release the money after the suspect had promised to split the profit with him in a 50-50 ratio and handed a post dated cheque of N4.5million, to cover the capital and the interest to him.
According to the EFCC statement, at maturity, the victim took the cheque to the Bank but to his consternation, it bounced.
He contacted the suspect who now told him that there was no money to share as she had lost all the money invested in the online forex transaction.
All efforts by the victim, who is based in Abuja, to collect his money, even without interest, failed.
Instead, the suspect started sending pastors of their church to persuade the victim from taking any action, but the bank where the victim sourced the money would not accept any excuses.
It was at this point that the victim decided to report the case to EFCC, which subsequently arrested the pastor. On interrogation, she confessed to have collected the money from the victim, adding She stated that she knew the victim through his sister who is a member of Christ Embassy, Lagos and that she decided to introduce the forex business to him.
"He gave me N3million in April this year and I promised him N4.5million in 45 days, because the interest I expected from the business was another N3million and we agreed that we would share the interest equally," Pastor Omawumi said. She said that the unusual happened when the President of European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet announced worldwide that there might be increase in the interest rate of Euro and this led to panic buying and eventual crash of the market.
The suspect, however, confessed that as of the time she issued the cheque to the victim, she did not have money in the account.
The suspect, who claimed to be a full worker at Christ Embassy headquarters, however promised to refund the money as soon as possible.
EFCC, which said the Pastor has regretted her action, quoted her as telling its investigators: I feel bad, it was an irrational move, and I should not have been involve."
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