A 29-year-old, Abuchi Wisdom Nwachukwu, has been murdered after telling his friend about money sent to him by his South Africa-based elder brother for the completion of his housing project in Nigeria.
Nwachukwu was said to have been killed his friend and colleague, identified as Moses after he informed of the N13 million sent to him by his brother.
The Isiala-Mbano, Imo State, native was 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.
He later beheaded Nwachukwu’s lifeless body, dumping the headless body in a bush close to the company.
Moses later took possession of his phone and ATM card which he took to some internet fraudsters in Auchi who helped him to withdraw the sum of N2.2 million from Nwachukwu’s account at various POS points in the city.
The police were called after Nwachukwu’s headless body was discovered but could not identify him.
They later took the 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.
His South Africa-based brother, however, wrote a petition to the Inspector General of Police, Adamu Mohammed, months after he could not locate his brother or hear from him.
TheIGP later directed operatives of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT), headed by Abba Kyari, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, 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.
Moses, an Auchi Polytechnic graduate of Mechanical Engineering admitted to killing Nwachukwu.
He 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.
Moses, a 27-year-old native of Auchi, said his friend’s ghost had been haunting him since the day he killed him.
He 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.
“I regret my actions now.”
