Kenechukwu Eze, a native of Amoli Edem in the Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State, on Wednesday, said his gang killed a former Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Emmanuel Agundu, for allegedly withholding N18m which they realised from Internet fraud.
According to the 39-year-old suspect, the money was lodged into Agundu’s Nigerian bank account.
Agundu, who was the Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Udenu branch, was first shot on August 15, 2018, at Obollo-Afor in the Udenu Local Government Area of Enugu state by unidentified gunmen around 7pm. He however, survived the attack.
Again, on September 2, 2018, the gunmen trailed him to Uru-Uwani Edem in the Nsukka Local Government Area where he was shot dead.
One of the gunmen in the attack was arrested and remanded in prison custody.
However, the long arm of the law caught up with Eze, a member of the five-man gang of Internet fraudsters based in Morocco and he arrested on Wednesday, July 10, 2019, by operatives of the Enugu State Police Command.
Parading the suspect alongside others 18 arrested across the state for various offences ranging from armed robbery, kidnapping, car snatching, vandalism, cultisim, unlawful possession of firearms and murder, the state Commissioner of Police, Suleiman Balarabe, disclosed that Eze was arrested with the help of credible intelligence.
According to him, the police had been tracking the suspect since Agundu’s death.
Speaking to newsmen during the parade at the state police headquarters, Eze admitted that his gang killed the former NBA Chairman and that the person who shot him had been arrested and remanded in prison.
He claimed not to know the late Agundu personally adding that he was brought into their ‘business’ by one of the gang members.
“I didn’t know the lawyer in person, but one of our members brought him to join us in the business. His job was to supply a bank account to pay the money we realised into.
“So, we paid a total of N18m into the account he supplied and when we asked him to provide the money, he rebuffed us. Instead of making the money available for us to share according to our agreed formula, he started threatening to report the matter to security agents. That was why we decided to end it once and for all.
“I was arrested because of the death of that lawyer that we did a fraudulent transaction together. He spent N18m and was killed because of that. The person, who shot him, is already in prison. We were five in number; Emmanuel Ebonyi, one Valentine and his younger brother, Agundu and I.
“It was an online business, but the barrister supplied the account that we paid into. We paid a total of N18m into his account and he kept all the money,” he said.
