Three police officers have been accused of collecting about N500,000 worth of insurance claims of deceased and non-existent officers.
The guilty trio are: an Assistant Superintendent of Police, a female inspector and a corporal, all unnamed.
The officers, who are attached to the insurance section of the police command, are currently being detained by the Lagos State Police Command.
They were arrested by the X-Squad Section of the command on Monday, November 10, after the police authorities received a petition that families of some dead policemen were being owed claims.
It was revealed to Punch by a police source that the officers would undergo an orderly room trial.
“The policemen are attached to the insurance section, and they are in charge of handling the claims and gratuities of deceased officers. They were arrested about two weeks ago. What happened was that they defrauded the police by collecting money on behalf of non-existent and dead policemen.
“Their mode of operation is to cook up names of policemen, claim that the policemen are dead, and then collect their claims. The money runs into millions. They are currently in the cell, and they are going to face an orderly room trial.
“It was when a petition got to the command that investigation began into the matter. We went to some divisions where the three officers claimed policemen had died and had collected gratuities for them, but we discovered that there were no such names.
“We also discovered that the families of some dead policemen, whose claims had been paid by the police, had not got their claims. That was how the three were arrested. The total sum of the fraud is not known, but if each insured policeman gets about N500,000, then the amount runs into millions.”
Police spokesperson, DSP Joe Offor, confirmed the arrest, saying: “Some police officers were arrested on an allegation of fraud.”
“The fraud borders on tampering with records of deceased members of the Force. We have some families of deceased policemen whose families said they died as far back as 2013, and the families had not got their entitlements. There could still be others involved. But investigation is ongoing into the matter.”
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