The Benin Zonal Directorate of the Financial and Monetary Crimes Fee (EFCC) has gone after a 58-year-old woman, Rita Izehia Iyoha, for allegedly defrauding a few N446 million in a property deal gone fallacious.
Iyoha, in collaboration together with her sister, Fidelia Oghenetejiri, is accused of swindling Frank Obruche Esemudje and his spouse underneath the pretence of promoting a property positioned in Effurun, Warri, Delta State to them.
In accordance to the petition, the sisters falsely introduced themselves because the rightful house owners of the property, claiming it was a part of their inheritance. After the victims paid the complete quantity, they have been unable to take possession of the property due to a subsisting courtroom judgment restraining the sale.
Efforts to get well the cash proved futile as Iyoha reportedly fled to Ghana shortly after the transaction. Nevertheless, EFCC operatives tracked her down and arrested her at a well-liked motor park in Lagos upon her return to Nigeria.
She has since made helpful statements and can be arraigned in courtroom quickly.
In the meantime, her sister, Fidelia Oghenetejiri, is already going through trial earlier than Justice Hyeladzira Nganjiwa of the Federal Excessive Court docket in Warri, Delta State, on a three-count cost bordering on advance payment fraud and acquiring cash by false pretence.
One of many costs reads: “That you just, Fidelia Oghenetega Jemu, on or concerning the twenty second of Could, 2025, in Warri, Delta State, throughout the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court docket, by false pretence and with intent to defraud, did acquire the sum of N50 million by way of your First Checking account quantity 3217460863 from Frank Obruche Esemudje underneath the pretence that the cash was for the acquisition of a property located at No. 54 Airport Highway, Effurun, and thereby dedicated an offence opposite to Part 1(1)(a) of the Advance Charge Fraud and Different Associated Offences Act, 2006, and punishable underneath Part 1(3) of the identical Act.”
Oghenetejiri pleaded not responsible to the costs and has been remanded in a correctional centre.
