A soldier, Chidera Okoro, has absconded after tricking the owner of a betting shop, Agbai Matthew, into staking the sum of N146,000 on some games for him on credit in his shop at No. 51 Efians-Okereke Road, Aba, in the Osisioma Ngwa Local Government Area of Abia State.
It was gathered that Okoro, who visited Matthew’s shop, promised to refund the money that same day, but refused to fulfil his promise after he lost the entire amount to gambling.
It was learnt that when Okoro was done staking on the games, Matthew and his friend, Samuel Ajike, followed the soldier to his parent’s house in the hope of getting paid, but he reportedly escaped through the back door.
Matthew said, “I run a Bet shop and Okoro came to my shop to stake money on some games on credit. When I asked for the money, he promised to transfer it to my account immediately and so we proceeded. He tricked me into funding the account so that he could stake money on the games. At first, I funded the account with N40,000, but when he lost the money, he asked me to fund the account again and I declined.
“I demanded that he transferred the amount he borrowed from me and he asked for my account number. After I gave him, he made an attempt to transfer the money but it wasn’t successful. It was at that point that he suggested that I should follow him home to get my money. I was still contemplating whether to follow him or not when he asked for additional funding of N50,000. Since I would be following him home, I funded the account.
“Later, he demanded more funding of N20,000 and N36,000, which I did. I became heartbroken when he ran away through the back door after Ajike and I had followed him to his parent’s house in Umule to get my money as agreed. I have not seen him since then.”
The 31-year-old said efforts to get back his money proves abortive.
The case, however, took another dimension as Okoro allegedly threatened to kill Matthew because of his persistent demand for his money.
Matthew stated, The most painful thing is that whenever I call him to demand my money, he usually threaten to kill me. If anything happens to me, people should hold Okoro responsible.
