The police have arrested a part-time male student of Nigerian Institute of Journalism(NIJ), Ogba, Lagos, posing as United States female makeup artist, Shayla, on his Instagram page to dupe unsuspecting men who made romantic advances to him.
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The suspect, Falope Oluwole Israel is 100-level student of NIJ. Operatives of the Rapid Response Squad, RRS, of Lagos State Police Command arrested him last Thursday in Ikeja City Mall after being on his trail for weeks.
Oluwole’s arrest followed series of complaints lodged with the police about an Instagram handle @blackberbiedoll, used for criminal activities, which was later traced to him.
Admitting to the crime, the suspect said: “When I started, much as I pretended to be a lady on phone, some men on the other side didn’t believe me. I then downloaded an app on Google which transformed my voice into that of a lady whenever I am having conversation.
“I got several pictures of Shayla, a pretty United States-based lady on my profile. Since then, men have been disturbing me and calling to request a date.
“What I do is that I assess people based on their appearance on Instagram, add them and thereafter open up conversations with them before I started bringing up all manners of stories in order to dupe them.
“At a point, I lied to most of them that I had an accident and I lost my ATM. I told them that I need some money. Some of them were generous enough to drop money into my account.
“I lied to them that I was putting up a boutique and saloon at Ikota, VGC and Lekki, and that I needed money to finish setting up.
“I know I made a mistake downloading Shayla’s pictures and used them for fraudulent purposes. I am telling you the truth, those that I have collected money from can’t be more than 33.”
