A church protocol officer in the habit of luring church girls to hotels and taking their nude photographs, using the photographs to blackmail them in exchange for money has been arrested in Lagos. The suspect, Duru, a University dropout was arrested in Surulere on Thursday, after repeatedly blackmailing his female church member and one of his girlfriends.
One of his girlfriends, name withheld, whose photograph he had taken in conjunction with his friend at gunpoint while lodging her in a hotel in Ijeshatedo called at the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) of the Lagos State Police Command Headquarters, Alausa, to narrate her ordeals. Duru, 23, a protocol officer with a new generation church (name withheld) based in Oregun, Ikeja, Lagos, was investigated and discovered to have been using nude photographs of his girlfriend to blackmail her in exchange for money.
It was also discovered that the suspect was keeping the nude photographs of other girls while lodging them in hotels and his apartment in Ijeshatedo. A senior police officer revealed that the suspect obtained the nude photographs of the victim with the assistance of a third party at gunpoint while there was a growing suspicion that Duru also laced the drink of another girl with sleeping drugs as the photographs obtained from one of his mobile phone revealed.
The suspect in his confession stated, “she was my girlfriend. We are the same church members. We have been dating for almost two years. We were having break up issues. So, I invited her to a hotel in Ijeshatedo. I excused myself and invited my friend, Obinna, to meet me in the hotel. Obinna and I planned the deal together.
“The gun was a toy one. Obama entered the hotel room and held the lady at gunpoint. I told her to cooperate, naked her for Obinna to take her photographs. We took seven different shots of her nudity with my phone. I discharged her that day. This was in September. Early October, I called her to give me N80,000 or I would publish the nude photographs online.
She was only able to offer me N10,000, which she transferred into my brother’s account.
“Last week, Obinna called her again and requested for N40,000. She promised to send something. She was a wonderful girl that had been assisting me before the problem started. On many occasions, she has assisted me financially”.
Duru, it was gathered attempted to escape from police custody in handcuffs while the police were trying to effect the arrest of his accomplice, Obinna in Ijeshatedo. The victim, in her statement to the police, alleged that she thought Duru’s friend was a waiter when he entered the hotel room:
“He brought out his phone, I was asking my boyfriend what was going on, he slapped me telling me to remove the blanket covering my body. I refused. He dragged it out of my body telling me to cooperate. I refused again. He asked his friend for the gun and threatening to shoot me if I did not co-operate.
“His friend took several shots of my nude photographs. Both of them abandoned me in the hotel room. I asked him almost a week after what he wanted to do with my photos and he told me that it was the beginning of my problems. The following Saturday, he threatened to put the photographs online unless I pay N80,000 in order to delete them. I paid N10,000 with a promise to pay the balance afterward.”
after a week, his friend called me offering another option for me to pay him N40,000 and a night with him. I refused. He threatened that I would hear from them very soon”
