A 36-year-old Charles Abam, a fraud suspect, who is now being held at the Force Headquarters, Abuja, for attempting to defraud the children of President Muhammadu Buhari, was at one point in his life, a police sergeant.
According to Abam, after being jobless since 2003 when he lost his job as a policeman, he found out he could make a lot of money by defrauding influential Nigerians.
The suspect allegedly got hold of the phone number of a prominent chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, whom he contacted by impersonating Mrs. Daisy Danjuma, wife of Gen. T.Y. Danjuma.
Through the APC chieftain, he was able to contact some members of the First Family, setting in motion a con that was supposed to net him millions of Naira.
The indigene of Ndukwa East, Delta State, told investigators after he was tracked down and apprehended by the Inspector-General of Police Special Intelligence Response Team, that he quitted his police post in 2003 after being enticed by a chance to travel abroad.
He said,
“When I had an opportunity to travel out of the country I left my duty post and went on to process my documents, but I was defrauded and I lost all my money.
“I went back to my police job but I was told that I had been declared a deserter. I begged to be reinstated but was not taken back. I then began to look for work. I also applied for a bank security job but did not get it.”
A source at the IRT told Saturday PUNCH that in April 2017, Abam sent an SMS to the said APC chieftain, asking for the phone numbers of the President’s children.
The chieftain was said to have replied the SMS that she did not have the phone numbers of the President’s children but sent that of the elder brother of First Lady, Aisha, thinking she was communicating with  Daisy Danjuma.
It was learnt that Abam again contacted the First Lady’s brother by SMS, asking for the phone numbers of the President’s children.
The police said he eventually got the phone numbers of the President’s children, whom he sent messages, again impersonating Danjuma” to asking them to present five names for a phantom job with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.  

When the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris was notified of the suspected fraudulent activities of Abam, the IRT was tasked with tracking him down.
Members of the First Family were said to have played along and sent some names and phone numbers to the suspected fraudster.
Eight names, which were provided by the police, were eventually sent to Abam and his accomplice, Felix Machi.
“The suspect then pretended to be officials of the NDLEA and called the phone number that had been sent to him. He asked them to pay a certain amount of money to a bank account, which would be payment for their kits during their training exercise. But no payment was made to the accounts,” our correspondent was told by the police source.
Abam was tracked down through the details of his bank account which he told his supposed victims to pay into.
The suspect, who also led operatives to arrest his accomplice, Machi, said he regrets his action.
Punch