Two ladies arrested with fake $2,000 at Lagos airport

TWO ladies were, on Wednesday, arrested at the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport with fake $2,000.

The development came, even as the Bureau de Change operators at the airport condemned the circulation of fake currencies in the country.

While reacting to the arrest of the culprits, who were caught at the Hajj camp of the Bureau de change office, the chairman of Hajj Camp Forex Exchange Market, Arewa Complex, Alhaji Abubakar Usman, said the trend had become a source of concern to them.

The ladies, in their late 20s, were apprehended while attempting to exchange the fake dollars for naira.

According to Usman, members of the association had lost millions of naira to fraudsters, as a result of fake foreign currencies, while warning that anyone caught would be handed over to the law enforcement agents for prosecution.

The development, he said, had reduced the trust the customers had in the bureau de change, adding that every month, about 12 suspects were apprehended for similar offences.

Usman recalled with sorrow how some of their members were killed by fraudsters, after inviting them to hotels to exchange money and vowed that none of their members would be allowed to do money transaction in hotels, eateries and public places.

He lamented that some military personnel had formed the habit of defending some of these fraud-sters anytime they were arrested, adding that it took the intervention of Operation MESA to get one of the suspects arrested and taken to the police station.

When contacted, the divisional police officer in charge of the camp police station was not available for comment, but a senior police officer confirmed the arrest of the two suspects.