A middle-aged man, Innocent Udeme, has lamented the loss of three phones and money to a lady who he claimed hypnotised him at his shop in GRA, near a nightclub in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
He said the suspect, whose identity had yet to be ascertained, bought pepper soup from him, adding that she, however, did not eat the meal.
Udeme said the lady asked him to follow her and he obeyed without questions.
He explained that he followed the suspect to a hotel on Evo Road, GRA, adding that the incident happened around 3am on Wednesday.
The trader said on getting to the hotel, the lady gave him a drink, which he took and slept off.
Udeme said he was woken up by the hotel staff, who came to check on the room around noon being the checkout time for guests.
The father of two disclosed that he was stripped to his pants, as his N27,000 and three handsets were carted away by the lady, who made attempts to have sex with him before he lost consciousness.
He said, “I usually sell rice and pepper soup and people know me around that area. A girl came and said she liked my food and that I should sell for her.
“After giving her the food, she said I should give her my phone to make a call. I gave her the phone and she asked me to escort her to a hotel.
“From that point, I didn’t know what I was doing again. I just saw myself following her. The hotel she took me to is on Evo Road. She collected everything I had on me.
“The people in the hotel woke me up in the morning the next day. All my belongings were gone. My friend gave me two of his phones to keep for him that night, which I kept in my pocket, plus my own phone. Altogether, three phones and the N27,000 I had made that night, were all gone.”
He said operatives of the Abacha Road Police Division, where he reported the case, drove him back to his house to re-unite with his family.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Grace Iringe-Koko, said the police did not have a record of the incident.
“He is not certain about the place because I called the DPO and he said nothing like that happened.
“Maybe you should call him to give the exact location for us to be clear,” she added.
Punch