Tragedy as a factory worker simply identified as Moses allegedly beheaded the head of his colleague in Edo state.
WITHIN NIGERIA learnt that the deceased, a 29-year-old man identified as Abuchi Wisdom Nwachukwu was murdered by Moses, his friend and colleague after informing the latter that his elder brother who lives in South Africa had sent him the sum of N13 million to complete his housing project.
It was further learnt that the deceased, Nwachukwu who is a native of Isiala-Mbano, Imo State was allegedly hacked to death by Moses on January 7, 2020 during a night shift at the table water company where they worked in Auchi, Edo State after which he took possession of Nwachukwu’s phone and ATM card.
According to TheNation report, the murderer, Moses went on to behead Nwachukwu’s lifeless body so that it would not be recognised and dumped the headless body in a bush close to the company.
The murderer later took the deceased, Nwachukwu’s phone and ATM card to some internet fraudsters in Auchi who helped him to withdraw the sum of N2.2 million from Nwachukwu’s account and approached various POS points in the city to withdraw various sums of money.
The police were bewildered when they found Nwachukwu’s headless body but could not identify him. The police took the headless body to the mortuary while Nwachukwu’s relatives in Imo State as well as his brother in South Africa worried about his sudden disappearance and their inability to reach him on the phone.
Months after his South Africa based brother could not locate his brother or hear from him, he forwarded a written petition to the Inspector General of Police, Adamu Mohammed.
Operatives of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) headed by Abba Kyari, a Deputy Commissioner of Police swung into action to unravel the mystery behind Nwachukwu’s disappearance.
It was gathered that weeks into their investigation IRT operatives were able to trace the POS transactions Moses did with Nwachukwu’s ATM cards to Benin, Ore and Auchi parts of Edo State.
They later arrested him in a hotel in Auchi where he was hiding.
The suspect, Moses eventually admitted that he killed his colleague, Nwachukwu during interrogation.
Moses also led IRT operatives to arrest suspected internet fraudsters—Yusuf Sagiru, Tony Bright and Terence Okochukwu—as well as businessman Jahswill Ogbonnaya, who were said to have helped Moses to pull out the sum of N6 million from the account.
Upon interrogation, Moses a 27-year-old native of Auchi, said his friend’s ghost had been hunting him since the day he killed him.
The Auchi Polytechnic graduate of Mechanical Engineering said: “I work in a table water company in Abely area of Auchi, and I have been working in that company in the last four years.
“When Nwachukwu got a job in the factory, I was the person who taught him how to operate the machine, so we became very close friends.
“While we were working, Nwachukwu told me about his brother who lives in South Africa and how he has been sending money to build his house for him.
“He showed me the alert for the N13 million his brother had just sent to him, saying that he would be travelling to his village to carry out the project. I felt jealous and I decided to steal the money.
“Since we were friends, I tricked him and collected his phone password. I went through it and found the PIN for his ATM card.
“Few days before the day he would be travelling, we worked on the same shift. I lured him outside the company, stabbed him with a knife and killed him.
“I dragged his body into the bush, and because I don’t want people to recognise him easily, I cut off his neck and buried it. Then I took his ATM card to some fraudsters. I gave it to one Yusuf and told him that I needed to hack the account.
“We withdrew N2.2 million from the account. I had trouble with Yusuf because he and the people he brought in wanted to cheat me.
“I killed him on January 8, 2020 and travelled to Ore and Benin City. I stayed in several hotels and was carrying different women, but Nwachukwu’s spirit started disturbing me.
“Whenever I want to sleep, the boy’s spirit will appear to me and will be crying. The girls that were with me would run away, saying that I want to use them for money ritual.
29-year-old Godswill Uche Ogbonaya, a native of Aro-Chukwu area of Abia State and a graduate of computer science from University of Uyo also narrated how he hacked into Nwachukwu’s account.
He said, “I am a trader, I sell electrical materials in Aba, I was arrested because some friends brought an ATM card, asking me to withdraw money from the card.
“I had a payment application known as paystack.com which I have been using to do my business. Most of my customers used the application to buy and sell their goods. I used the card to make a purchase and the authentication number to credit my paystack wallet.
“I took just one million from it but they requested that the money should be sent to an account of a bureau de change because they didn’t want any trouble.
“So, I contacted my friend living in Lagos who got an Alhaji to provide his account. The Alhaji took N400,000 as commission and the remaining N600,000 was sent to their account through one Bright Tony.
“I’ve been paying the money into their accounts and I already remitted N480,00 to other parties. It was on July 3, 2020 that I was arrested.
“Tony called me that he wanted me to do another transaction but I didn’t know that he was with the police and when I showed up, the police arrested me.”