Idowu Mosope, a Compliance Officer at Celia’s Suit, Abeokuta, one of the hotels seized by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, says visitors mistreated by EFCC officers have vowed to sue the hotel over the raid.
Mosope claimed this on Tuesday in response to the EFCC’s Monday raid on his hotel and two others.
He bemoaned the fact that 25 operatives invaded the hotel and forced their way into 15 rooms when the guests were still sleeping.
When EFCC operatives badged into their rooms around 3 a.m. on Monday in search of internet fraudsters, he said some guests complained that they were naked.
According to the Compliance Officer, who claimed to have attended EFCC money laundering and fraud training, the operatives pointed pistols at the visitors and then left with three guests who had arrived in Nigeria from Dubai.
EFCC officers raided three hotels in Abeokuta, including the government-owned MITRO Residences Annex, and detained 56 suspected fraudsters.
Tokunbo Odeniyi, the EFCC’s Head of Public Affairs in Ibadan, affirmed the occurrence.
On Tuesday, however, Mosope criticized the EFCC’s sting operation and the way in which it was carried out.
The Compliance officer said, “Very early at about 3:12 am on 13 of September 2021, our security guards informed us that we were invaded by some gunmen that claimed that they were from the EFCC, they are numbering about 25.
“They came in commando-like at that odd time. They went to our front office at gunpoint, they threatened them, straight away, they were led to CCTV, our server room, they took our gadgets, the DVR after that, they collected hotel master cards, they did not allow our staff to lead them, they were opening the rooms one after the other with the master cards.
“They invaded the privacy of these guests without allowing our staff to guide them in line with the international standard and hotel practices that was not what they told us in the training.
“They did not knock, they did not spend more than 20 minutes here, it is like they are tracing somebody. If they had told us we would have shown them and other guests would not have known. They opened all the rooms and some guests were naked and scared.
“Now, the guests want to sue the hotel and not EFCC. They said why did we allow their privacy to be intruded on, why did we give them master cards. We did not say they should not work, our boss hates anything like internet fraud. We don’t take them.”
He went on to say that EFCC agents searched all 15 rooms in the hotel, entered all of them, and detained three people.
Read More: Why We Raided BBNaija Star, Dorathy’s House – EFCChttps://agnesisika.com/why-we-raided-bbnaija-star-dorathy-house-efcc/
“The guest came in on Saturday with his pregnant wife from Dubai and two of his friends.
“We collected his profile when he came and kept it.
“On his luggage, we called police because the EFFC did not take his luggage away and his wife left the second day. We called police and they came to document it before we packed the load so that anytime he comes we can hand over this luggage to him.”
He did, however, urge the operatives to equip themselves with the warrant in a professional manner.
“They should have come with a warrant of arrest of somebody they are tracing, we are partners in progress,” he said.
“They have told us that we should cooperate and we are cooperating, anybody that they are tracking they should show us so that other people will not be affected. This has called us a bad image, reputation has gone bad this is demarketing on its own.”
