Church protocol officer arrested for blackmailing girls with nude pictures

Juliana Francis

A 32-year-old church protocol officer, Mr Victor Duru,  has been arrested for allegedly blackmailing his girlfriend with her nude pictures.

According to the police, Duru was in the habit of luring female members of his church to hotels, where he would take their nude pictures and later used such pictures to blackmail them in exchange for money.

Duru, a Madonna University drop out was arrested in Surulere on Thursday, after repeatedly blackmailing his church member and girlfriend by operatives of the Rapid Response Squad (RSS), Ikeja, Lagos State Police Command.

A police source said: “One of his girlfriends, name withheld, whose pictures he took in conjunction with his friend at gun point while lodging her in an hotel in Ijeshatedo, called RRS Headquarter and narrated her experience. Duru is a protocol officer with a new generation church based in Oregun, Ikeja. RRS investigated and discovered that Duru had been using the nude photographs of his girlfriend to blackmail her in exchange for money. It was also discovered that the suspect was keeping the nude photographs of other girls while lodging them in hotels and his apartment in Ijeshatedo. The suspect obtained the nude photographs of the victim with the assistance of a third party at gun – point while there is a growing suspicion that Duru also laced the drink of another girl with sleeping drug as the photographs obtained from one of his mobile phones revealed.”

Fielding questions from detectives, Duru said: “She’s my girlfriend. We attend the same church. We have been dating for almost two years. We were having break up issues. I invited her to a hotel in Ijeshatedo. I excused myself and invited my friend, Frank Obinna, to meet me in the hotel. Obinna and I had this planned together.”

Duru further recounted: “The gun was a toy gun. He entered the hotel room and held the lady at gun point. I told her to cooperate, stripped her for Obinna to take her pictures. We took seven different nude shots of her with my phone. I discharged her that day. That was in September. By early October, 2019, I called her to give me N80, 000 or I would upload the nude pictures on the internet. She was only able to give me N10, 000, which she transferred into my brother’s account.

“Last week, Obinna called her again and requested for N40, 000. She promised to send something. She was a wonderful girl that had been assisting me before the problem started. On many occasions, she has assisted me financially.”

Duru attempted to escape from police custody in handcuffs while police were trying to effect the arrest of his accomplice, Frank Obinna in Ijeshatedo.

The victim said that she thought Duru’s friend was a waiter when he entered their hotel room.

Her words: “When he brought out his phone, I asked my boyfriend what was going on, he slapped me and ordered me to remove the blanket covering my body. I refused. He dragged it off my body, telling me to cooperate. I refused again. He asked his friend for the gun. His friend took several shots of my nudity. Both of them abandoned me at the hotel room after. I asked him almost a week after what he wanted to do with my photos, but he just said that it was just the beginning.” 

The lady explained that the following Saturday after the incident, Duru called and threatened to put the photos online unless she paid N80, 000. He further promised to delete the pictures if she paid the N80, 000.

She continued her narration: “I paid N10, 000 with a promise to pay the balance afterwards. After a week, his friend called and offered me another option. He said that I should pay him N40, 000 and spend a night with him. I refused. He threatened that I would hear from them very soon.”

The police disclosed that some of the ladies whose nude photographs were found on Duru’s phone when contacted by the police to come forward in order to prosecute the suspect said they were not interested in making a case with the suspect. 

Duru, along with some of the exhibits recovered from him, toy gun and mobile phones containing nudes pictures of ladies have been transferred to the State Criminal Investigations Department (SCID), Panti, Yaba, for further investigations.