Gbenga Ogundele aka Benson Ogundele, 58, of Laurel, Maryland has been sentenced to 234 months in prison over conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering arising from a scheme to defraud vulnerable victims of millions of dollars.

Ogundele’s wife Moji Popoola, aka Mojisola Oluwakemi Tin Popoola/Moji T. Popoola, 42, also of Laurel, was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Both sentences will be followed by three years of supervised release.

United States District Judge, Paul W. Grimm also convicted Ogundele of aggravated identity theft in connection with the scheme.

Judge Grimm, had on March 20, 2017, sentenced Mojisola’s brother Babatunde Emmanuel Popoola, aka Emmanuel Popoola/Tunde Popoola, 34 to 12 years imprisonment on the same charges.

Ogundele and the Popoolas were convicted on November 18, 2016, after a 17-day trial.

Ogundele, Mojisola, and Emmanuel, were, in 2015, indicted by a federal grand jury alongside Mukhtar Danjuma Haruna, a/k/a “Mukhtar Haruna Danjuma” and “Mukky,” of Lagos, Nigeria; Victor Oyewumi Oloyede, 41, of Laurel; Olusegun Charles Ogunseye, aka “Charles O. Ogunseye,” 58, of Laurel; Adeyinka Olubunmi Awolaja, Jr., aka “Yinka O. Awolaja, Jr.,” 33, formerly of New Carrolltown, Maryland; Olusola Olla, 48, of Brown Summit, North Carolina; and Olufemi Wilfred Williams, aka “Wilfred Olufemi Williams” and “Femi Williams,” 26, of Owings Mills, Maryland.

The judge ordered Ogundele to forfeit $2,195,103.36, Mojisola Popoola to forfeit approximately $165,000 and to pay restitution of $34,100, and Emmanuel to pay restitution of $465,170.76.

According to the evidence presented during their trial, from January 2011 to May 18, 2015, members of the conspiracy searched online dating websites to initiate romantic relationships with elderly male and female individuals. They phoned, e-mailed, texted and used Internet chat messenger services to form romantic relationships with the victims, who lived in Maryland and around the country.

The members of the conspiracy were said to have used a number of false stories and promises to convince the victims to provide money to the conspirators, including fake hospital bills, plane trips to visit the victims, problems with overseas businesses and foreign taxes. The conspirators opened bank accounts in order to receive millions of dollars from the victims.

Numerous deposits from several victims into bank accounts controlled by the defendants, or checks received from the victims, ranging in individual amounts from $1,720 to $30,000 were also discovered.

Members of the conspiracy used false stories and promises to convince the victims to provide money to the conspirators, including fake hospital bills, plane trips to visit the victims, problems with overseas businesses and foreign taxes.

Oloyede, a co-conspirator was sentenced to 234 months in prison.

Awolaja, Ogunseye, and Williams pleaded guilty to the charges against them. Awolaja will be sentenced on June 12, 2017, Ogunseye, on July 25, 2017, and Williams, on July 27, 2017.

Our radar has reached Congo, and this time it’s reporting that there’s a church in Congo known as Louzolo Amour, where they use beer to cast our demons out of their members.

Emile Loufoua Cetikouabo founded the church, and he has proclaimed himself as god, claims to be invisible. Though the founder is dead, but church members claim he is represented one earth by their current leader, Charles Mikoungui Loundou.

The church believes beer can be used to cleanse evil spirits. The members call this mixture of beer and faith, “biéramicine”.

Services which lasts up to 9 hours are dedicated to the healing of souls and bodies with sips of beer and praise. People come from all walks of life mainly to seek an immediate solution to all their evils.

“I arrived here sick, brother Mikoungui gave me a bottle of beer, I drank a first sip, and a second, at the third one, I went into a trance, I then felt better. I believe beer can heal, if you drink it with faith”a believer, Kondi Jean- Jacques, told African news.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/852450295296794624

Here’s a sad story of we saw on Facebook.. and it pains us to the bones.

A Man on Facebook, John Boobarri Diidi says 5 months ago, he had a terrible dream about one of his Facebook friend.. narrating the dream, he said the Lady he dreamt about died after a failed operation.

Immediately after the horrible dream, he quickly buzzed the Lady in question and narrated the dream to her, noting that he had already rejected the dream on her behalf.

Unfortunately, the lady died after a surgery 5 months after.

He shared the conversation he had with the lady, and wrote:

“My last and only conversation with madam Onyinyechi Flourish Enyiazu

It’s very sad that there is an extent our control over the spiritual can be.

R.I.P Amazon!”

A Zambian pastor, Andrew CFM, who’s a self-acclaimed miracle worker, has claimed to have turned water into kerosene during his Church’s worship service.

The pastor, popularly called Seer 1, had asked the congregation to come with a bottle of water each, as he was about turning the contents variously into wine, kerosene and even premium motor spirit, also known as petrol.

He reportedly had his own bottles, too, which he laid on the floor before the altar and prayed on the contents to be turned into kerosene.

After the ‘prayers,’ he picked up one of the bottles and poured the contents on a folded paper and lit it.

As the fire burned, the congregation erupted into uproarious shout and dashed to the altar area. Everyone who made it to the ‘miracle spot’ touched whatever was seeping out of the burning bottles and anointed themselves with it.

Controversies have since trailed the alleged miracle.

Watch the video video:

https://youtu.be/WGljTfcm3DU

An 8 month old Indian baby girl weighs 2st 10lbs due to her constant cravings for food.. and she is piling on even more pounds as the days go by.

The girl, Chahat Kumar, is from Punjab, Indian and she weighs a similar amount to that of a 4 year old child.

Reports from Dailymail.co.uk says her parents blame her heavy weight on God and her quadruple-sized portions of food, but they deny any responsibility over her diet.

Doctors are confused as to what is causing her insatiable appetite, and are growing increasingly worried about her health.

She now struggles to breathe and even sleep as a result of her excessive weight caused by eating like a ’10-year-old’, local reports suggest.

Despite the campaign of the Inspector General of Police on decent policing in Nigeria, a rogue police squad in Edo State is thwarting the efforts. Martins Ifijeh chronicles how the squad serially brutalised a Professor of Law in Ambrose Alli University with cutlasses, hammers and teargas for daring to ask questions.

When the Dean, Department of Law, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Professor Sunday Edeko woke up in the morning of March 13, he did not envisage he would be serially brutalised for over six hours like a common criminal and would end up in hospital bed to treat the wounds and pain that came with such brutality.

He had left the house that morning like every other civil servant, when he saw a young boy he identified as a relation of the former Speaker, Edo State House of Assembly, Thomas Okosun, in a parked police van, which made him slow down and asked the boy what he was doing in the van.

Little did the Professor of Law know that his decision to ask the boy question at all, would be all that the rogue police squad, needed to use cutlasses, hammers, teargas, their boots, blows and slaps on him, claiming they were directly from the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Haliru Ugwandu’s office and acting on his command.

Narrating his ordeal to THISDAY, Edeko said on that particular day, when he slowed down to ask the boy what was the issue that he was put in the van, before the boy could reply, an armed man who was not on police uniform told him to get away.

“Without even giving me time to move or offer an explanation, he used a hammer to hit my right hand. That was their first assault against me. I was surprised why a trained police officer would descend to such level of brutality against an unarmed and peaceful individual. I managed to park the car some metres away and alighted from the car. At that point, about five armed men who were not in police uniform advanced towards me.

“I clearly introduced myself as Prof. Sunday Edeko, the Dean of Faculty of Law, AAU, Ekpoma. All my attempts to explain that I am a law-abiding community leader fell on deaf ears. They started the second stage of their assault on me. They descended on me with hammers, cutlasses, tear gas, hand and foot. They brutalised me and inflicted injuries on my back, hand and leg.”

He said as soon as he left the scene of the unprovoked attack, he drove straight to the police station to report the matter, where a police officer was released to accompany him to the scene.

“When we arrived there, the attackers had gone. We went back to the police station and I sighted the men who brutalised me in the special anti-cult unit office. I then drew the attention of my police companion to them. They chased the police officer away and descended on me with a higher level of brutality. They said they were different from the “useless police officers in Ekpoma, and were only answerable to the Commissioner of Police, Edo State, Mr. Haliru Ugwandu.

“They fell me, kicked me around the floor in an atmosphere in which they used tear gas on my eyes, slapped me with cutlasses very many times that I could not count. That was the third stage of their assault. When my wife came, they threatened to arrest and charge her with armed robbery, kidnapping and cultism, the crimes they accused me of,” he said.

According to him, their fourth stage of brutality started when they gave him a pen and paper to write a statement. He said they compelled him to write even though he was in pains. “They tore my first two statements because they said I should not write my name as “Professor Sunday Edeko. They equally seized the third and fourth statements because they were not written in the exact way they wanted.”

He said when the men could not lay hold on a crime against him, they then started accusing him of cultism, which him personally has always been against. Adding that throughout the period they detained and tortured him, which was between 9:30a.m. to 3p.m., he made uncountable number of appeals to them that he was a responsible Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Law. “The more I introduced myself, the more they got infuriated.

“They then later accused me of an attempt to go and buy Indian hemp from a woman they also arrested. It was even in the police station that I met the woman for the first time as I never knew her before then. I have never smoked Indian hemp and I hope they will agree for all of us to do examination to know who will test positive of Indian hemp consumption.

“I never obstructed them since all I asked one of the boys after they were already arrested was a simple “what happened?” I have never insulted the police. In fact, I collaborated with them in the past to play a better role in law enforcement. Even after they brutalised me in town, I went to the police station because of the confidence I have in the police. Only a fool will obstruct and insult the police and still go to the police station to seek their protection. I am not a fool. Moreover, an unarmed civilian of my status has no capacity whatsoever to obstruct close to a dozen police officers who were fully armed and who effected arrest already.

“Whenever I failed to write the exact thing they told me to write so as to incriminate myself, the more they slapped me with hand and cutlasses and sprayed teargas on my face. They only stopped beating me after they used their torture cutlass to cut the shoulder of one of the suspects. I have been able to identify the boy they cut on the shoulder through the same hospital we went for treatment. About 12 of us were in their torture office. They detained me behind the counter for about two hours before I was released with the intervention of the Onoje of Ekpoma and the Divisional Police Officer. I immediately proceeded to the General Hospital Ekpoma for medical attention.”

The highly respected professor in the academic community said as though their brutality was not enough, they compelled him to write an apology letter over an incident in which they brutalised and dehumanised him, hoping they could use that to cover their tracks when in fact it only aggravates their degree of impunity.

“They are the people who owe me apology and compensation. I never broke the law. They broke the law with the highest level of impunity and recklessness. I need to add that I am not the only person they have so brutalised as others are willing to step forward for their testimonies.

“Ekpoma is now in a state of fear. They attack people with impunity. They have broken up birthday parties in hotels. They raided Hisbanah Hotel near No 17 Eromon Street and arrested more than 50 boys and girls who were in a birthday party. The owner of the hotel, a former local government Head of Service called Mr. Cyril Abhulimen informed me. They equally used cutlasses and hammer to torture them.”

He said in a society where they arrest innocent people, it cannot be said that they are combating crimes at all, adding that Ekpoma has become a town under siege.

‘Their leader in the anti-cult office who joined other police officers to brutalise me is ASP Ojo. One of the attackers is Mr. Harrison whom I later learnt to be a native of Illeh. I was released when the Divisional Police Office (DPO) came and appealed to them. I was not taken on bail but simply released.”

He said while the Academic Staff Union of Universities and the Nigerian Bar Association have taken some steps over the matter, he has petitioned Zone 5 Police Headquarters and feels ashamed over what a section of the police has turned into in a society where stakeholders and respected citizens like him were advocating for a better society.

Edeko called on President Muhammadu Buhari, the Inspector General of Police, the Police Service Commission, and well meaning Nigerians to help him fight for justice and stop police brutality and the bad image of the police which the new Inspector General was trying to do.

Meanwhile, when THISDAY contacted the Edo State Commissioner of Police, Ugwandu, which the rogue police squad claimed were acting on his instruction, he said he was just hearing of the incident for the first time, and that such persons who carried out the brutality would not have been said to be policemen. He outrightly denied that they are not police men.

Recently, the IG, Ibrahim Idris said the force was determined to rid the country of policemen who continue to soil the name of the police force, adding that all heads of various police commands, including Assistant Inspector Generals of police and commissioners have been advised not to entertain indecency in their various commands.

A recent investigation showed that hundreds of thousands of innocent Nigerians are being brutalised yearly, with over 1000 innocent persons killed recklessly by police officers.

What therefore comes to mind is, if police men can serially brutalise a Professor in the 21st century, what hope has the common man without a voice has? How many have such rogue police squad assaulted and tortured for simply daring to look them in the face.? If truly the IG is serious with the much talked about image salvaging, the Edo rogue squad should be identified and disciplined accordingly by the force.

A Zimbabwean Female senior police officer has frowned to the decision of leaving young girls alone with a family member who is a “male” because every male should be seen as a potential rapist.

The Bulawayo police spokesperson, Inspector Precious Simango explained that there is a very high chance that abusive sex might take place if males are left alone with young girls.

Simango said, “We want to reiterate that every male is a potential rapist and as such we want to warn the public not to leave the girl child under the guardianship of male relatives.

“We also want to urge the youths not to indulge in activities that may endanger their lives.”

In the last one year for example, Lagos State recorded 4,035 cases of sexual and child abuse the state’s Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Adeniji Kazeem, has said.

Kazeem mentioned it during a news briefing on the activities of the state’s Domestic and Sexual abuse.

Operative of the Nigerian Police Force have finally arrested a notorious cultist, Tochi Chilaka, popularly known as Toshiba.

He was arrested at Akwakuma in Owerri Norh LGA after he had robbed one Franca Edom at gun point of undisclosed sum of money.

According to reports, the rusticated student of Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, is a member of the Black Axxe Confraternity and a notorious criminal who has been on the wanted list of the Police Command.

He has made useful statements to the Police confessing to have been involved in many criminal activities in the state including arm robbery, burglary/stealing as well as other drug related offences.

He is also responsible for the murder of one Chinedu Stephen Akagha 35years who was shot to death by two armed men opposite Chibyke Filling Station, Akwakuma in November, 2016.

The suspected hoodlum was arraigned alongside other criminal elements, kidnappers and fake soldiers who were apprehended by operatives of the Imo police command.