UYI scam: Gendarmerie assists criminal to escape

Elements of Mfoundi Territorial Unit of the National Gendarmerie reportedly connived with an impersonating Red Cross agent to evade justice.

The suspect, a certain Ndang (we were informed he goes by many names), was arrested mid this year following reports from a ‘victim’ after he purported to be an agent of the Cameroon Red Cross, CRC.

He deceived hundreds of University of Yaounde I students into a fictitious CRC volunteer recruitment programme.

The Cameron Journal gathered that some 1,500 students were involved, with an estimated sum of 4,500,000 FCFA swindled.

When Ndang’s go-between, one Abel Razak a.k.a Bobi; a University of Yaounde I student studying Chemistry, reported the matter to the central services of the national gendarmerie, the case was transferred to the Mfoundi territorial unit of the national gendarmerie.

After Ndang’s arrest, Bobi said he couldn’t understand the swiftness with which the case was being handled. He suspected that Ndang’s in-law (sister’s husband), a certain lieutenant in the national gendarmerie corps was using his position to influence the case.

When The Cameroon Journal paid a visit to the gendarmerie station, the investigating officer, whose only name we obtained as Bertrand, wasn’t on seat.

Finally when we got him on phone, Bertrand said the suspect had been transferred to Kondengui Central Prison in Yaounde because he could not afford to repay the stolen money. Asked of the full names of the suspect and when he was transferred, the officer merely said the file is an old one already closed at their level.

Though we cannot independently confirm whether the state counsel ordered for a trial or penitentiary authorities of the prison admitted Ndang, we were reliably informed that the fake agent was allowed to escape as he had a Moroccan visa.

The Scheme As It Unfolded

Going by an intermediary between the scammed students and the fake CRC agent, Abel Razak a.k.a Bobi, who claims he was misled and victimized too, the scam had long been at work by Ndang, but blowout only late last year.

“Ndang met my younger brother last year and told him he had leaked BEPC, Probatoire and Baccalaureate question papers. He wanted my younger brother to get candidates for the exam who could buy the question papers. He promised an unspecified commission for the deal. When my younger brother hinted me, I told him it was too risky for him and asked him to let me go in for the job,” Bobi narrated, adding that he just needed some few francs to get his life going.

When Bobi met with Ndang, it turned out that the deal was no longer question papers but the recruitment of some volunteers for a campaign in the Far North Region.

Soon, however, Bobi became Ndang’s foot soldier, moving from one lecture hall to another announcing the volunteer programme and carrying on the recruitment exercise.

Bobi acknowledged having received the first part of the commission from his ‘boss’ – the fake agent though he did not specify the amount. However, he said the agent started dribbling him when the second part of his commission was due.

“When it took so long for the list of those recruited to be out, students, just like me, started suspecting that all was not well,” Bobi said. “I then became suspicious of Ndang as he will never step out of his car whenever we met. I did my own independent findings before I discovered that I had been used to dupe my fellow students,” Bobi narrated.

Going by him, students who were victims began mounting pressure on him until he had to report the matter to the national gendarmerie.

Bobi said he arranged a meeting with the agent on the pretext that he had gotten more potential volunteers. It was then that Ndang was nabbed by plain clothes gendarmes after he attempted to escape. It was a Sunday and the agent was detained at the Mfoundi Territorial Unit of the Gendarmerie in Yaounde.

Unsuspecting University Students Fall Prey

Gideon Ayeah Gobti is a Master I student of Geology in the University of Yaounde I. He was amongst the students tricked into giving up their meager school allowance to the fraudster.

The postgraduate student says he became so excited on learning of the recruitment that he failed to “give a second thought when this guy came around with the news that volunteers where needed by the Cameroon Red Cross for a campaign in the Far North Region. I went into it fully with the hope that the paid position as we were told, will keep me busy during the holidays,” Ayeah recounted.

The victim disclosed that he only realized it was a scam several months after they had done the medical tests but the final result of those recruited was never forthcoming.

Ayeah frowned at the fact that added to the paid fee, transport fare incurred and cost of compiling the documents (approximately 6000 FCFA in total), he did not concentrate on studies as they took On Continuous Assessment, CA tests during the period the scam unfolded.

Like other victims, amongst them: Bertrand Dzemo, Mohamadou Bago Labaran, James Njisong Mbang and Evelyne Josephine Menyie Schilick, who are all students of the University of Yaounde I, Ayeah expressed discontent that till date, no noticeable justice has been meted on the fraudster.

By The Journal’s rigorous findings, no fewer than 1500 students fell prey to the fraud. Through one of the receipts we stumbled on, we discovered that the fake agent inflated the figure to give students the impression that many others were rushing after the recruitment exercise.

Deo Gratias Hospital’s Involvement in Scam

When The Cameroon Journal visited Hopital Catholique Deo Gratias in Emana II, Yaounde, on Friday November 13, officials admitted they were aware of the mass screening which took place in their establishment.

The ‘directrice déléguée’(manager) of Deo Gratias, who resisted divulging her name said, when the fake agent initially came saying that he has some potential volunteers to beexamined, the hospital requested for a written document from the Red Cross. But the ‘directrice déléguée’ quoted Ndang as saying that he had no document and he was at Deo Gratias because they wanted to decongest the CRC headquarters.

As such, the Deo Gratias manager said they received the students as ordinary clients. “The victims were attended to as normal patients who come here for consultation. We carried out simple clinical examinations; checking body temperature, height, weight, sight and so on,” she noted.

The hospital official said they charged the fake CRC agent 1000 FCFA per client for the medical examination, though victims said they paid at least 3000 FCFA for the exercise. Some victims added that they had to purchase consultation booklets at the cost of 300 FCFA at the hospital precincts.

Asked of the total number of students they examined in the hospital, the manager said the number did wasn’t above 150, promising to go into the consultation records for the months of March and June 2015 and get back to us. After several working days, she did not get back to us. The Cameroon Journal visited the hospital again but did not meet her on the seat. We waited again for more days for her call to no avail.

Deo Gratias, said no fewer than 300 students where at the hospital for the same exercise the day he was examined. “I can’t tell for how many days the exercise lasted…So if you multiply the number of days and candidates who were examined, then we can have nothing less than 600 persons who were examined in the hospital for the same purpose,” Mbang disclosed.

He added that the whole deal was so shady. “We never saw the agent. Only an intermediary came and took our application documents as well as medical booklet to the agent who was in a room,” Mbang explained. He stated that the booklets were never returned to them.

Quizzed on whether she was aware the supposed CRC agent was defrauding the students, the hospital manager regretted she did not think of verifying the identity of the agent. She also added that she did not know the agent’s name. “He came here wearing Red Cross uniforms. I saw him with Red Cross documents and it did not occur to me that he could be fake,” the hospital manager said.

She reiterated that the hospital collected only 1000 FCFA per student and vouched they would have collected less had it been the agent brought an authorization from the Cameroon Red Cross.

The hospital manager persistently claimed they can’t be part of a mafia. “It is really unfortunate that we were inadvertently part of this,” she admitted on record. She went further to say that Association Humantaire Afrique Future (an international NGO that sponsors the hospital) is involved in humanitarian activities. The manager then pleaded with our reporter not to write an unfavourable report.

When we accosted officials of the Cameroon Red Cross to find out whether the purported Red Cross agent had any link with CRC, they were flabbergasted.
The secretary general of CRC, Boniface Ebodé emphatically disclaimed the agent. “These Bonas boys are terrible. They have started again!” Ebodé thundered in the French language, showing his colleague a fake receipt sample which our reporter took to the CRC head office in Yaounde.

The CRC secretary general clarified that the stamp that was used on the fake receipt is unlike theirs. He showed The Cameroon Journal the official CRC stamp and we observed that there was a marked difference.

CRC officials noted that whenever they are to carry out any recruitment of volunteers, it is done at the headquarters and nowhere else. “By the way, as at now, we already have so many volunteers whom we can just call up if there is any mission or campaign. There is no need for us to engage in such mass recruitment of volunteers,” Ebodé said.

He promised that they were going to issue a disclaimer which will be read over national radio. Ebodé equally seized the opportunity to call on the population not to be susceptible to such unscrupulous individuals and to do due diligence for clarification whenever in doubt.