Late in June, an Abuja-based car dealer took to social media to announce that a potential buyer had made away with a grey N55 million Mercedes Benz.
According to reports, the dealer noted that the young man had insisted on test-driving the Benz before making payment and had absconded with the vehicle with the knowledge of the owner.
A few days later, the vehicle was found in a remote area in Delta State through the help of the Delta State police force. The retrieval of the vehicle was followed up with a quest to capture the thief.
A recent report posted by @GossiplmillTV that came in states that the young man involved in the car theft, who is now being questioned by authorities, says he didn’t disappear with the vehicle. Rather, he drove it from Abuja to Delta to test drive.
In his statement, the 25-year-old young man stated:
“I’m from Ughelli in Delta State, but I live in Abuja. I’m into foreign exchange and bureau de change business. I have been doing this for 7 years. I started along that line when I was in secondary school. My business is at Istanbul Airport, Turkey, so I used to shuttle between there and Nigeria. I started it there in 2021. I returned from Istanbul in May after the general elections. I was arrested on July 6 for car theft after I was tracked by the police. Actually, I moved the car from Abuja to Delta State. “I didn’t steal the car, but it was not mine. What happened was that I got the owner’s contact from an online platform. He posted the car’s picture on the platform, putting it up for sale. When I called him to indicate an interest, he told me to come for the car inspection. He was also Abuja-based and the location he invited me to was at Garki. I saw the car, and the intending seller put the price at N58m. I offered to pay N30m and he said I should test-drive it so that I would know the value of what I was pricing. He gave me the car key and sat on the passenger seat. When we got to a filling station, he asked me to pull over as he needed to buy fuel for the car. He told me to wait so that he would go and get some cash to buy the fuel. I waited for his return for 3 hrs but he was nowhere to be found, and I was already causing a queue at the filling station. I called his line several times but it was switched off. It was already dusk so I drove to my residence at almost 8pm. My phone had gone flat then, so I charged it when I got home and called him again. His line was switched off. The next day, I drove down to Delta for business. That same day, I saw my picture that he posted on the internet, calling me a car thief. His call also came in and he told me he had informed the police and they were tracking the car. This made me mad at him. It was crazy. I switched off my line known to him and started using my other line.”
