Three self-acclaimed Islamic clerics (pictured above) who specialize in swindling unsuspecting members of the public of their hard earned money as well as having unlawful carnal knowledge of their female clients have been arrested by men of the Ogun state police command.

A statement from the command’s spokesperson, Abimbola Oyeyemi, says the suspects, Aliu Abdulfatai, 50; Sule Adebayo, 36 and Lekan Olokodana, 31, were arrested following a report by one of their female victims (name withheld) who reported at Adigbe Police Station that she was duped of the sum of N70,000 by the suspects, while one of them raped her.

Abimbola said the complainant, who is marketer with a popular property/real estate company went to report the suspect at Adigbe Police Station in Abeokuta, was said to be on marketing assignment when she came across the suspects who claimed to be Islamic clerics and indicated interest in purchasing large expanse of land which they claimed they wanted to use for construction of their mosque.

“There and then, they introduced the issue of special prayer to their victim from where they came out with seeing a vision that the victim is under a spell which needs special deliverance prayer to cast out. As a result of this, they succeeded in fraudulently obtained the sum of N70,000 from her after they lured her into their house where one of them forcefully raped her.

“On the strength of her complain, the DPO, Adigbe Division CSP Augustine Opadile detailed his detectives to go after these hoodlums and bring them to justice. Their efforts paid off when three among them were apprehended while waiting for the victim to bring money they demanded, and one of them escaped,” Oyeyemi said in his statement

Oyeyemi said the suspects confessed to committing the crime. One of the suspects confessed to using proceeds from the crime to build a private school in Ikorodu.

The state Commissioner of Police, Bashir Makama has ordered a full scale investigation into the case and for the suspects to be charged to court soon.