M.E Sheriff, lawyer to the past Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami and his family, has condemned a press statement by one Mahdi Shehu over his arrest and detection by the police, concerning alleged N19 million online scam.
In a statement today, February 10, the lawyer said that the press statement that was made on February 7, 2024 as well as that of 13th January 2021, “is totally not correct, misleading, malicious, and a grossly misrepresentation of the facts leading to the arrest.
“We, as solicitors to Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN and his family, noted the said press statement with grave concern.”
The legal practitioner said that without prejudice to the police investigation that is ongoing, the true facts had to do with Complaint/Petition “which we wrote to the Inspector General of Police on allegations bothering on extortion, criminal intimidation and attempt to obtain money by false pretence against a syndicate using GSM Numbers and email addresses. This led to the ongoing investigation into the complaint by the Police.
“In the course of the investigation, the Police monitored the sustained communications between our clients and the syndicates, wherein the syndicate disclosed and gave Room Number 9, Summerset Continental Hotel situate at No 73 Usuma Street, Maitama, Abuja, as a place where our client would meet the syndicate’s agent for their own payments.
“On reaching the hotel and the room number, Mahdi Shehu was found therein at the scene with copies of documents that were used and sent to our client by the syndicate. Some of the documents which the police retrieved from Mahdi Shehu specifically lend credence to yet another petition of our client that bothers on hacking and financial improprieties affecting Hajiya Aisha Abubakar Malami.
“On account of the compromise of our client’s emails, sensitive information was unlawfully extracted from an email account, and the sum of over N19,000,000.00 (Nineteen Million Naira) was unlawfully taken out of our client’s account by the syndicate which turns out to be a syndicate of which Mahdi was coordinating, via a group chat which he joined through the following phone numbers, viz: +2348033316644 and +2348096626226.
“He came over to the said provided address to collect $500,000 (Five Hundred Thousand US Dollar) at the instance of the syndicate.”
Malami’s lawyer said that the investigation and all the documents recovered thus far are there with the Police for any person that cares to verify.
“Therefore, we should all encourage, support and allow the police to do their work as it is the outcome of the investigation that can confirm who is culpable and who is innocent.
The statement said that at the moment, if Mahdi Shehu has any explanation to make regarding the arrest, he should do so to the police but not to the press or embark on campaign of calumny via the social media.
