The Nigeria Police Force says four men from the Lagos State Police Command have been detained for allegedly extorting money from a resident under duress.

The policemen were said to have been taken into custody after the report of the alleged extortion went viral on the social media on August 17, 2017.

It was stated in the post that two policemen, Matthew Olaadujoye and Oba Roland, stopped the victim, who was driving along Ogudu Road, Lagos, and asked for his mobile phone.

“I refused to hand it over because I felt it was an infringement of my privacy…but it was forcefully taken and my messages were viewed along with my account details…I was extorted for N100,000. The excuse for this was because he saw in my google app that I had more than one Gmail login. So I was tagged a Yahoo boy…I was detained for four hours and my car keys taken from me. I wasn’t released until I transferred to Matthew’s account a total of N15,000,” the post read in part.

In a statement on Wednesday the Officer-in-Charge of The Public Complaint Rapid Response Unit, ACP Abayomi Shogunle, said the poster was contacted.

He said, “The policemen involved — two inspectors and two sergeants — attached to the Ogudu divison have been identified and removed from any duty that involves any form of contact with members of the public, pending the conclusion of a detailed investigation.

“Bank statement of account confirms that the complainant, following the orders of one of the policemen, transferred the sum of N15,000 into the account of a third party.”