The Delta State Police Command has apprehended a 20-year-old herbalist named Amechi Okwuokenye and his 26-year-old stepbrother, Smart Okwuokenye, in connection with the murder of 22-year-old suspected internet fraudster, Friday Liberty.
The suspects allegedly kidnapped Liberty and an okada rider, Isioma Ugbeje, demanding a N10 million ransom. When the plan failed, they murdered both victims and dumped their bodies in a soak-away pit at the herbalist’s shrine in Owa-Alidima, Delta State.
The police discovered the crime after Liberty’s girlfriend informed his family about a conversation she overheard, linking the herbalist to Liberty’s disappearance. The family then contacted the herbalist, who denied knowing Liberty’s whereabouts but offered to perform spiritual incantations to help him return.
Bright Edafe, Delta State Police Public Relations Officer confirmed the arrest in a statement that reads in parts;
“It was a case of the hunter becoming the hunted, when on the 30th of September 2025, Mr Friday Liberty, aged 22 years old, visited his herbalist, whom he had known for some time now, but this time, he never returned. The family, who initially didn’t know what had happened to their brother, started looking for him. During the course of the investigation, the detectives uncovered the last person whom Friday Liberty contacted, and found out it was the same herbalist who denied knowing his whereabouts.
Surveillance was laid around his shrine at Owa-Alidima in Ika North East LGA, for days, until he was arrested on 23rd October 2025, in his shrine while hiding inside a refrigerator. Upon his arrest of the herbalist Amechi Okwuokenye, aged 20 years, confessed that both he and his brother Smart Okwuokenye, aged 26years, kidnapped the victim liberty Friday and the motorcycle rider identified as Isioma Ugbeje, who carried him to the shrine.
They further stated that Friday Liberty has been his long-time customer who frequently visits him to hypnotise clients so they could give him money easily in his words, ‘to tie clients’ They kidnapped him and the Okada Rider and demanded a ransom of N10,000,000. When they noticed that the plan was not working, they murdered him and the motorcycle rider and dumped their bodies in a soak away pit by the shrine.”
Further investigation revealed that Liberty had visited the herbalist to hypnotize clients for easy money, and the stepbrother had concocted a plan to kidnap one of the herbalist’s clients to extort money.
