Plateau police arrest POS con artist

The Plateau State Police Command has apprehended one Jonathan Sambo Bitrus, male, 20 years old, of Bauchi State, for allegedly defrauding a Point of Sale (POS) machine operator of One Million, Five Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (#1,550,000.00) at Terminus market.

According to the victim one Miss Josephine Morolayo, the suspect visited the shop where she works as a POS sales girl in Terminus market and requested to check his account balance.

He later requested for the sum of One Million, Nine Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (#1,950,000.00) to be withdrawn from his account, so she initiated the transaction and gave him the machine to punch in his PIN, after which she proceeded to give him the sum of One Million Five Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (N1,550,000.00k) and pleaded with him to wait for her boss to return from the mosque for the balance of Four Hundred Thousand Naira (N400,000.00.00k).

It was upon her boss’s return that she discovered that the receipt she saw, was of a transaction she had made before the suspect’s arrival and it dawned on her that she had been defrauded. By this time, the culprit had escaped with the aforementioned amount.

Speaking to the police, the suspect confessed that he accessed the victim’s transaction history when she handed him the machine to insert his PIN and upon discovering a previous transaction of One Million, Nine Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (N1,950,000.00), he requested for the same amount to be withdrawn from his account which to the best of his knowledge was empty. He further revealed that in the course of withdrawing the funds, he cancelled the transaction.

Confirming the arrest to newsmen, the command’s spokesperson, SP Alfred Alabo, said the suspect was arrested upon receipt of the report and during our interview, he confessed to the crime and stated that he used the funds to purchase an iPhone 13 Pro and clothing materials. He is currently in our custody and will soon be charged to Court for prosecution