‘We played on our victims’ greed to defraud them’

A 36-year-old single mother, Mrs Susan Parma, has told the police in Lagos how she and her fellow suspects have been exploiting the greed and desperation of their victims to defraud them. Mrs Parma, who was paraded on Monday with two accomplices, Chukwuma Okoye and John Oloye, at the Lagos police command headquarters, Ikeja, said […]

A 36-year-old single mother, Mrs Susan Parma, has told the police in Lagos how she and her fellow suspects have been exploiting the greed and desperation of their victims to defraud them.

Mrs Parma, who was paraded on Monday with two accomplices, Chukwuma Okoye and John Oloye, at the Lagos police command headquarters, Ikeja, said they had swindled many people under the pretence of enriching them quickly or casting out demons from them.

She said, “I pretend to be a spiritualist or act as a native doctor. 

My role in the gang depends on who they bring before me. To make our victims part with enough money I have to make my prophecies look real. 

Most times, it isn’t charms that work on fraud victims but their desperation to get rich quick.

“The trick is that when they come before me I allow them to talk more. Sometimes, someone close to the victim would give me an insight into the would-be victim’s expectations and worries. Apart from those in quest for wealth, many of our victims are also young ladies looking for husbands. When I play with their emotions they will open up.”

On how she joined the gang, the mother of one said she once fell for the antics of conmen.

“The guy who initiated me had sex with me many times after he and his gang had collected all I had. I intended to start trading with the little money I had but the gang swindled me of it with the promise that we would share a bag full of dollars, which they showed me. I kept going to meet them with the belief that my problem had ended. 

That was how one of them started sleeping with me,” she added. 

The Lagos State Commissioner of Police said that detectives recovered from the suspects fake money in different denominations, charms and other items he alleged they were using to defraud people.