by ‘Jola Sotubo

Senator Bala Muhammad, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, has reportedly fallen prey to a perpetrator of Advance Fee Fraud.

The minister was conned by a swindler whose specialty is the cloning of numbers and using same to defraud unsuspecting citizens.

According to Vanguard reports, Senator Muhammad was duped after one Ibrahim Sabo Takat, resident in Wuye District of Abuja , used the minister’s phone number to conduct a cash transfer, all the while impersonating the latter.

In particular, Takat succeeded in ordering the Chief of Staff to the Minister to pay the sum of N3 million into his own account domiciled with Diamond Bank with number 0011141544, posing as if the Minister was the one giving the order.

Unknown to the Chief of Staff, he quickly arranged and paid the amount into Takat’s account on Thursday, August 8, 2013 without suspecting any foul play.

Shortly after the amount hit the account, Takat promptly withdrew it and disappeared into thin air.

But he ran out of luck shortly after when the minister smelt a rat and reported the huge swindle to the security agencies, when he discovered that he did not issue any instruction to this Chief of Staff to pay the N3 million into the fraudster’s account.

The FCT Director of Security confirmed the arrest of Takat yesterday to journalists in Abuja and said that he would be charged after concluding investigations into the fraudulent act.