I don’t feel happy being in custody, says 68-yr-old arrested with fake currency

A 68-year-old man, Mr Femi Faweya, who was arrested with one Segun Adeoye over fake Nigerian currency found in his possession, has urged the Nigerian government to provide jobs for unemployed youths to keep them away from crime, saying that a busy hand would not get involved in crime.

The suspects was among the 47 suspects paraded by the Commissioner of Police in charge of Oyo State Police Command, Mr Sam Adegbuyi, last Tuesday at the command headquarters at Eleiyele, Ibadan. He and Adeoye were alleged to have specialised in printing fake Nigerian currency.

While speaking at the press briefing, Adegbuyi said that the two suspects were caught with 655 pieces of fake N1000 notes with the same serial number N/40 526257, 35 pieces of N500 denomination with the same serial number Q/59 099504, a colour printer and printing papers.

In an interview with Crime Reports, the elderly suspect, whose head and chin were covered with white hair, confessed that “I was arrested for unlawful possession of Nigerian fake currency.”

Explaining how he got the fake notes, Faweya said: “What I did was to use a colour printer to produce photocopies of N1000 and N500 notes. I started fraud business about three years ago when one Bayo introduced me to it, though he is now dead. He duped me of about N200,000 and I could not do anything about it.

“That was when he sold the idea to me so that I would make some money too. I started printing fake currency about two months ago when I got a good colour printer. I tested the printer and saw that it was good and I could do it. My first production was what I was caught with. I would have done it before then but I didn’t have money to buy the printer and the ink.”

On his arrest, the suspect said he was in his house about two weeks ago “when the police came to arrest me. I didn’t know how the police got information about me. My aim was to use the money I would make to replace the one I lost to Bayo.”

He said at 68, he did not feel good being in police custody at his age but advised the Nigerian government to make jobs available for all categories of people to help them keep away from crime. “I was a Grade Two teacher and after 10 years in service, I retired. I left for Britain and worked there for three years.

“There, I met some guys who were involved in criminal acts and they introduced me to fraud through money transfer but I was not interested because I was regularly paid every week. I was living comfortably so there was no reason for me to get involved in crime. But something happened in the hotel where I was working when one of them stole someone’s credit card and I was repatriated back to Nigeria.

“I had a Peugeot 504 car but it later went off the road when I had no money to repair it. I had no means of living and my three children were in the university. Currently, they are just roaming the streets as they have no job to do. That was why I thought I could make ends meet through the fake currency.”

The second suspect, Segun Adeoye, said that it was Faweya who told the police that he was the one he got the printer from “but I never knew he wanted to use it to print fake currency. I brought the printer from Europe to Nigeria and I thought it was for his business centre.”

Adegbuyi said the press briefing became imperative in view of the operational order mapped out for the ember months and the coming sallah celebration, adding that the order had been yielding results.