by Rachel Ogbu

A suspected serial fraudster has finally been arrested by the Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Abuja after more than two months’ of frantic manhunt for him over a $92,000 scam.

Princewell Arinze Chukwueze’s arrest followed an allegation of sham transactions involving him and a well known Bureau de change operator in Lagos on May 10, 2013.

The EFCC recovered a variety of items from him including 21 different telephone handsets, complimentary cards of African Development Bank bearing Aboki J. Brown, fake $15,000; different cheque books of different banks among others.

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According to reports, Chukwueze had introduced himself as a Director of African Development Bank based in Cote D’ Ívoire named Aboki J. Brown and he used his fake identity to dupe the Bureau de change operator at Sura Shopping Complex, Sandgrouse, Lagos.

Sources claim that Chukwueze initially offered to buy $65,000 from him but then increased it to $92,000 and made arrangements for the exchange at a branch of Wema Bank Plc in Lekki, Lagos.

But when the operator got to the bank with the dollars, Chukwueze pleaded with the operator to accompany him in his siren-blaring Toyota Hilux Pick-Up Van to a “nearby branch of Zenith Bank Plc” instead so he could give him the naira equivalent of the foreign currency.

However, on their way there, Chukwueze was said to have picked up two armed men on the road who forcefully dispossessed the operator of the $92,000.

Chukwueze is also known to have used several other gimmicks to scam several bureau de change operators in Lagos and Abuja and was arrested on one of those operations while trying to defraud another bureau de change operator of $110,000.