A 19-year-old secondary school leaver, Chigemezu Arikibe, has been tracked down by the police after using fake social media accounts to swindle a Cambodian woman to the tune of $75,000 (N27m at N360 to 1$).

To woo his victim identified simply as Sophanmia, Arikibe reportedly paraded himself on Facebook and Instagram as an American pilot working for a British airline.

City Round gathered that after establishing a relationship with the woman, Arikibe offered to send her expensive gift items and $500,000, for investment in real estate business in Cambodia.

The suspect reportedly told Sophanmia that he would send the parcel to her through a courier in Indonesia and asked her to send $800 for the service.

He was said to have contacted his friend in Indonesia to act as a courier agent and collect the money from his victim.

After sending the money, Arikibe came up with excuses why the parcel could not be delivered and persuaded the woman to send more money accumulating into $75,000.

It was learnt the woman alerted the Nigeria Embassy in Cambodia when she discovered that “the American pilot,” communicating with her was calling from Nigeria and not the United States.

The embassy was said to have alerted the Nigeria Police and operatives of the Inspector-General of Police Intelligence Response Team led by DCP Abba Kyari went after Arikibe.

A police source told our correspondent that the suspect was trailed to the Mbaitoli area of Imo State where he is based.

“The suspect was arrested with the SIM card and the phone he used in committing the crime and when we went through the phone, we saw chats between him and the woman.

“Upon interrogation, the suspect confessed to everything and he also said there was a man in Indonesia who helped him pulled out the money from a USA bank account.  He claimed to be an American and that was why he gave the woman an American bank account. The worst was that the woman went and borrowed the money from the bank,” the source stated.

Arikibe, while confessing to the crime, said he learnt Internet fraud from his friend within one week and he started on his own.

He said, “I attended Community School, in the Eziooha area of Mbaitoli and graduated in October 2018. It was Ugochukwu my friend who taught me how to do Internet fraud. I opened a fake Fakebook account with the name Frank William and on Instagram I was Patrick William

“I uploaded the pictures of an American pilot on my fake Fakebook and Instagram pages. The pilot later discovered that I used his pictures and he started complaining. He even said he had been arrested three times by the police.

“My Facebook account was later blocked, then I focused on Instagram, where I met the client (Sophanmia). I followed her and we started chatting. I told her I am a pilot and we started discussing about life.

“I told her I wanted to send expensive clothes, shoes, wrist watches and the sum of $500,000 to her. I told her that the $500,000 would be invested in real estate business.”

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The teenager explained that he sent pictures of the purported items and the money to the victim which convinced her to send money for the courier service.

He added, “I told her that I have sent the money through a courier company and she would have to pay customs tax. My friend in Indonesia acted like the courier company and they contacted her.

“She was given the first bill of $800 and she paid. My Indonesian friend called the woman again and told her that the goods had been seized and they told her to pay $2,700.

“She paid the money and they asked her to pay another money which was $6,200. She paid several other monies to have the goods released. She ended up paying $75,000 and I got my share.”

Suspected militant Islamists have killed at least 30 people and abducted women and children in a raid in north-eastern Nigeria, officials say.

Most of the victims were travellers who were burnt to death while sleeping in their vehicles during an overnight stop, officials added

The attack took place in Auno town on a major highway in Borno State.

Militant Islamist group Boko Haram and its offshoots have waged a brutal insurgency in Nigeria since 2009.

About 35,000 people have been killed, more than two million have been left homeless and hundreds have been abducted in the conflict.

Nigeria’s government has repeatedly said that the militants have been defeated, but attacks continue.

Borno State governor Babagana Zulum looked visibly shaken when he saw the charred bodies during a visit to Auno following Sunday night’s attack, Nigeria’s privately owned This Day news site reports.

The militants came in trucks mounted with heavy weapons, before killing, burning, and looting, state government spokesman Ahmad Abdurrahman Bundi was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

The assailants “killed not less than 30 people who are mostly motorists and destroyed 18 vehicles,” the governor’s office said in a statement.

It also confirmed the abduction of women and children, but did not give a number.

Residents said most of the victims were travelling to the state capital, Maiduguri, but were forced to sleep in Auno, about 25km (16 miles) away, because the military had shut the road leading into the city.

The military has not yet commented.

Maiduguri was once the headquarters of Boko Haram, but government forces eventually drove the group out of the city.

It is unclear whether the assault was carried out by Boko Haram or a breakaway faction linked to the Islamic State (IS) group.

The anticipated radio broadcast of the presentation of the 2020 budget by the Cross River State Governor, Professor Ben Ayade on Friday did not take place as the budget proposal was not ready.

The Director General of the state Budget Office, Abeng Onoh, confirmed to journalists on Friday in his office in Calabar that the budget would be ready by next week.

According to him, “When the governor asked us we told him we have not finished. I just finished speaking with the consultant.

“By Wednesday or Thursday (next week) the budget will be okay. The problem why the budget was not finished is not from us but the consultant. The network was always fluctuating. Sometimes he will come and sit down for the network to come up. It was not the governor’s fault.”

Onoh, who did not disclose the name of the consultant, further explained that, “What happened is that nearly all the states are operating 52 digits while we are still operating 35 digits mode of codification of projects in the budget. The whole world are using 52 digits. So we are converting from 35 digits to 52 digits. We have not really finished.

“If you look at the capital expenditure, the coding has geo-location. If you have a project in Obubra, any person who sees the code on the internet will know the location is Obubra. Likewise projects in other local governments. In the Federal Government budget, it is the states that are used as codes. It is also operating the 52-digit code.

“Every state has a code. In the states every local government has a code. Any project you do in that local government has a code and can easily be traced as projects are codified according to local government. Cross River State uses State Integrated Financial Management Information System rather than Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) the Federal Government and other states use.”