‘Police extorting legitimate Forex traders’ -victim’s uncle alleges
Read the SOS below:
“Yesterday, the Police from Itam Junction Police Station went all the way to Ikot Akpaden and raided a hostel and captured four boys and took them to their Station in Uyo accusing them spuriously of being internet fraudsters. That is not the first, second or third raid in that School. The parents had to search everywhere to know where the children were taken to in the first place.
They went to Ikot Akpan Abia hoping that the Officers must have come from the Police Headquarters since they told the Students that they were from SARS. At Ikot Akpan Abia, the parents were told there is no more SARS. It was after several calls that they were told that they should go to Itam Junction Police Station.
That is where they saw the children. One wonders how the Police all the way from Itam Junction will go to Ikot Akpaden and arrest students from Akwa Ibom State University without recourse to Mkpat Enin Police authorities and also without contacting the University authorities.
“A Senior Officer at Ikot Akpan Abia advised that the parents should ask the School Management to write officially to the Commissioner of Police because the *”slave raid”* on the University has become a recurrent decimal and until the University Management does something about it, every time police need money in their pockets, they will just go to any of the two campuses and cart away students.
” Instances have there been when they just arrest the students and stand in one corner of the road and force the students to transfer all the money they find in their accounts to them and they will release them on the road. I write this because it has happened to my son. One of the boys arrested by Itam Junction police yesterday is also my nephew. I use this medium to appeal to Civil society to wade into this issue.
The police is leaving internet fraudsters to pursue innocent young men who are doing legitimate forex trading. It is like the Police don’t know the difference between ordinary traders and Brokers. Only the later are expected to be registered. They always accuse these youngsters of trading illegitimately without registration.
“From all I know, there is no law barring ordinary Forex traders from trading through the Brokers Platform with whom they register and pay a certain amount to trade. If there is, I would want to know, please. Else, the police should let the students of Akwa Ibom State University to breath.
All over our roads now, the check points mounted by the police is to search the phones of young boys and if they find any little money in the Accounts, they will accuse them of being internet fraudsters. They will arrest them and take them to a quiet corner of the road and force them to transfer the money to them. Is this the new way of police fighting “crime” while real criminals are rooming everywhere?”
Efforts to get the police authority in the state to speak on the matter were unsuccessful as at press time as the state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) was said to be unavailable when our Correspondent visited the State Police Headquarters, Ikot Akpan Abia this morning.