Doctor Freaks Journal - May Your Mobile Telephone Number Not Send You To Jail

 This is a must read!!!

2015:


I got a call from a high networth client on a Sunday. He sounded horrified/terrified and that was very unusual because he is not highly connected in the society, he is very wealthy too.


He received in his palatial mansion, some August visitors (officers of the Nigeria Police Force who came in two trucks) who had come to invite him from the police station in the neighbourhood. For obvious reasons, the policemen advised him to make 2 phone calls. 

He called his brother-in-law (a highly connected boardroom guru) first and called me thereafter. I left my Sunday lunch right there on the dining table and bolted out of the house. I made it to his house under 15 minutes and behold I met the police officers in his house. 

Initially, I protested that he was not going to follow them to their station on a Sunday being a non-juridical day. After a protracted forth and back, we struck a deal, he would follow them but only in the company of his brother-in-law, a well known personality in Nigeria. The brother-in-law showed up under few minutes and we all drove to the police station in the neighbourhood where they had booked earlier.


At the police station, I insisted on knowing the reason for the arrest and they obliged me after much pressure. A couple had been carjacked somewhere and in the course of their investigation they discovered that the car under reference had been resold to a third party and registered in the name of that person. 

The car was stolen in Lagos, it was traced to Port Harcourt and registered in Port Harcourt but since Autoreg requires that a mobile telephone no be registered against the name of the owner, the police had been tracking the telephone no so registered and behold my client's line was the most frequently line called by the suspected robber, hence the invitation extended to him.

 Well, my client revealed that the no belonged to his manager and that he could/would produce him under few minutes. My client called his manager and the guy showed up under 20 minutes.


The matter then got more interesting. Mr Manager in the course of his tasks was instructed to register a car in the name of the father-in-law of his oga's brother-in-law and he carried out the instruction. 

Flaw no 1! 

However, he did not bother to request the mobile no of the owner of the car he was registering, instead he supplied his own no at the point of registration. It was revealed that the well known boardroom guru gave money to one of his details and he instructed him to get his father-in-law a brand new car, the detail went to a car lot and got a brand new car as instructed but you know what, that car was not that new! 

The story got more interesting at that point. The first owner bought the car from the car lot of a popular brand in Lagos. One of the employees of that brand had a strategy. Once you buy a car from that car lot, he would supply your details to his armed robber friends and the rest is history. The original owner bought the car in question on a Thursday and drove it home. The car never left the house from Thursday till Sunday but as he, together with his family was driving to church on Sunday, armed robbers sprang up from the street and snatched the car and that was how the journey began from Lagos to Port Harcourt.

Kudos to the officers of the Nigeria Police Force who cracked this crime and exposed the syndicate. The vehicle was tracked to Port Harcourt and luckily, by the time the policemen called the dealer in Port Harcourt (a known name), he gave them maximum cooperation and undertook to produce the person who sold the car to him. That's his headache anyway. At that point I had to apply that the manager and my client be admitted to bail and that was gladly done.


That was close! 

You know what, we pray thus everyday- "lead us not into temptation," "deliver us from evil". May our phone no not lead us into trouble.

 Watch how you give out your mobile numbers.

Its Kunle!