ABUJA – A 29-year-old fake female medical doctor, named Rakiya Beida, popularly known as Dr. Amina Yusu­fu Ameh, an indigene of Okene in Kogi State who defrauds her unsuspect­ing victims with fake bank alerts has been arrested.

The fake doctor who claimed to be working at the National Hospital, Abu­ja is said to have dropped out in 200 levels, College of Medicine, at the Beyero University, Kano.

Force Spokesperson, a Commissioner of Police, CP Frank Mba, who pa­raded the suspects on Tues­day, alongside 35 others for various criminal offences, said the fake doctor spe­cialized “in duping busi­ness owners by sending fake keystone bank alert to business owners to collect products.”

He said, “Operating un­der this pretense, Rakiya goes from state to state, hotel to hotel, from busi­ness premises duping peo­ple obtaining goods under false pretense and making payments with fake bank alerts.

“She has so perfected her act by developing and building confidence with people. She had a history of having committed this crime in Kwara and Pla­teau states and now Abuja.

“Investigations show that in Kwara, she obtained gold under same pretense, which took her to prison, briefly and came out and continued the same busi­ness.”

CP Mba explained that the lessons in this case are not to judge a book according to its cover but ascertain the content of the book.

He urged business own­ers to ensure confirma­tion of bank alert before parting with their goods, especially to customers unknown to them.

Mba also called on vic­tims of her crime to con­tact detectives to consol­idate the entire case for appropriate prosecutions.

Speaking to newsmen, Rakiya said she was ar­rested because she was pretending to be a medical doctor.

“I go to shops, collect goods and make fake bank alert to them and walk away. Some give me the products and some don’t if they have not seen the alert.

“I have been doing this for a year and six months now, I was arrested in Kwara October last year where I was given gold and jarabiya to sell and return the money back to them, I sold and never returned the money back to them same in Plateau,” he said.

Relatedly, CP Mba also paraded a 24-year-old Ab­dukareem Ka who kid­napped a nine-year-old pupil at a school gate lo­cated at Karu New Nyanya under the pretense that he was sent by the mother to fetch the boy and teach him computer lessons.

Acting under that cover, Mba stated that, the “sus­pect successfully took the boy out of the school and effectively held him hos­tage. The young boy was held in captivity until his parents were able to pay a ransom of 1.5 million naira before he was released.”

According to Mba, while the case was reported, IRT swung into action and eventually tracked down the suspect who hails from Plateau state and eventu­ally arrested him with the ransom money recovered and the boy reunited with his family.