30th April 2024
Two suspected members of a cybercrime syndicate who specialise in impersonating government officials on Facebook have been arrested by operatives of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC). Commandant of the FCT command, Olusola Odumosu, who paraded the suspects on Tuesday, April 30, said they opened a fake Facebook account in his name to swindle Nigerians of their hard-earned money.
He said;
“Upon this discovery, I gave a directive to the intelligence and investigation team and the Anti-Fraud unit to unravel the person(s) behind the fake Facebook account.
Two suspected members of a cybercrime syndicate who specialise in impersonating government officials on Facebook have been arrested by operatives of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC). Commandant of the FCT command, Olusola Odumosu, who paraded the suspects on Tuesday, April 30, said they opened a fake Facebook account in his name to swindle Nigerians of their hard-earned money. He said; “Upon this discovery, I gave a directive to the intelligence and investigation team and the Anti-Fraud unit to unravel the person(s) behind the fake Facebook account.
He admitted to being the one withdrawing monies sent to the Opay account by his brother (Henry) through POS machines until he was arrested by the officers of the FCT Command in Abuja.” Confessing to the crime, Henry said he started online fraud in 2016 and he is the one who lured his younger brother, (Emmanuel Ushie) into the fraudulent act because he was disturbing him for (small small) funds. He confessed to duping a lot of unsuspecting Nigerians of different sums of money under different guises in cyberspace. He said; “Investigation revealed that they operate Opay, moniepoint and Palmpay accounts to receive money from unsuspecting persons, but no bank account with traditional commercial banks.“They also used two accounts belonging to one Victory Chinagorom, who according to them never knew they were into cyber fraud.”
According to Henry, his friend, Chibuike Okorie introduced him to cyber crime. The said Chibuike is currently in Kuwait as he has relocated from Nigeria. The Command said it was still investigating the case, noting that the suspects would be prosecuted according to the extant laws after findings.