Police officer's son flees with a woman's Benz and $700 in Bitcoin

Damilola Areje, a 28-year-old man from Lagos, is accused of fleeing with a 2019 Mercedes Benz GLE 43 worth N52 million and $700 worth of bitcoin that belonged to Nneka Chiemelu, a 32-year-old entrepreneur who works in real estate and construction.

Miss Chiemelu claims that on Friday, July 22, 2022, at around 4:15 pm, Damilola, a friend whose father, Inspector Adegbola Areje, is a police officer, allegedly stole her car from her apartment in Lekki Phase 1 and fled with $700 worth of Bitcoin that had been paid into his wallet by one of her clients.

PUNCH However, Metro learned that after the heist, Damilola had deleted his active Instagram account and turned off all four of his phone lines.

Chiemelu described her experience while sobbing, saying, "Damilola asked me to help him with the sum of N20,000 that he needed some money to pay for flyers to promote his business, and I promised to give him the N20,000 on the condition that he takes up a site supervision job at my place of work after the work is finished in order to help him rather than just hand him the money.

He requested that I help pay for his Uber ride, which I did by making a bank transfer to the Uber driver's account. He was supposed to resume at 9 am, but he did so at 2 pm.

"An hour later, he requested permission to use my car to charge his phone. I handed him my car keys, and he entered the vehicle while pretending to be doing so.

"A few minutes later, a visitor to the service apartment I oversee inquired if I had a cryptocurrency account so he could pay an outstanding fee using that method. I replied that I did not have one. 

I therefore asked Daniel whether he could help me receive money using Bitcoin, and he responded that he could and agreed to do so.

 My client then sent $700 into his Bitcoin wallet, and there, in the presence of my client and myself, the recipient acknowledged receipt.


A short while later, he requested to leave. I refused, telling him that he could only do so after sending me the $700 that was paid into his Bitcoin account. 

However, he lied, saying that his service provider was bad and that is why he was waiting for the network. Damilola asked if he could go with me to get food while we waited for the network, and I said yes.

 I then excused myself to quickly meet with some to let them know I was going to be gone for a short while, but by the time I got out, Damilola had already gotten into my car. 

Instead of honking for the security officer to open the gate for him, he asked one of my staff members to do so, and he fled with my Mercedes Benz and

"At first, I didn't realise that my car had just been taken, so I contacted him; however, neither of his phones were operational, although his WhatsApp status still showed that he was online at the time.

 I asked him to come back and that I needed to buy some food because I was starving, but he ignored me until he went offline. 

After waiting for him for about 20 minutes and not hearing from him, I decided to take an Uber to his house. When I arrived, the security told me that he had just packed up and left. 

I attempted to phone his numbers once more, but he had disconnected them and removed his social media account.

"So, that Friday, I went to the Maroko police station where his biological father works as a police officer to report the incident.

 I also posted on my Instagram account asking the public to assist me in reporting him if I found him somewhere stealing my car. 

I received comments on the post from him, his mother, and some other users claiming that I was lying and that the car belongs to him.

 I responded to almost all the comments by asking them to go to the police station and give their own account on who owns the car. I also told him that if it were true that the car belonged to him, he has to turn himself in if

"On July 27, I received a message from an international WhatsApp number from an unnamed individual I thought to be Damilola requesting for N500,000 to provide me with information on his whereabouts. However, when I inquired for his account number, he instead supplied a Bitcoin wallet address."

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Chiemelu described how she acquired her vehicle, stating, "I purchased my vehicle from Unique Motors on July 7, 2021, with a deposit of N27 million through bank transfer.

 I am expected to pay the car dealer a balance of N25 million later, and I have the receipt, even though I had not yet registered the vehicle.

To speed up the investigation process, I was later advised to request a transfer of the case to the Police Headquarters in Lagos, which I have done.

"The case was moved on Monday, July 25, and a week later, I have yet to hear anything from the police regarding my automobile.

However, on Tuesday, July 26, my contacts at the Vehicle Inspection Office tracked the registration of the car using its chassis number, and they found that Damilola had registered the car in his name on that same Tuesday, using my home address and one of his telephone lines that is now switched off, in an attempt to claim ownership of my car.

On Friday night, attempts to call Damilola were unsuccessful since all of his telephone lines were off.

When our correspondent contacted Inspector Areje, his father, the policeman said he was not authorised to comment on the subject because his son was involved in it and he was an official of the Nigeria Police Force.

The case has been transferred to the Lagos State Police Command Headquarters in Ikeja, according to SP Benjamin Hundeyin, the Lagos State Command's public relations officer, who spoke with our correspondent. He added that the Police had not yet finished their investigation.

It is true that the case has been moved to the Police Headquarters in Ikeja because of its complexity, Hundeyin stated. However, research is still being done, and no significant progress has been made.

Since they have information on every car purchased in Nigeria, we've written to the Motor Vehicle Administration Agency in the meantime. But now that we know Mr. Damilola is Miss Chiemelu's lover, it appears that there is a dispute over who is the rightful owner of the car.

"However, despite the fact that the car lacks a tracker and complicating matters, we are still looking for Damilola and the vehicle. We're on top of the situation, though, and once the investigation is over, we'll let you know what we found.

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