The South-South Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) in Port Harcourt on Thursday paraded 10 persons for alleged involvement in internet fraud.
EFCC’s coordinator in the zone, Mr Naghe Obono-Itam, told newsmen that the suspects impersonated American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan to defraud some American citizens.
He said that the suspects, all Nigerians hid under the internet to portray themselves as soldiers who needed donations.
The suspects were arrested in different locations and at different times across Port Harcourt (Rivers State), Warri (Delta State) and Asaba (Delta State) in a sting operation.
The suspects are Alia Jamike Chinemerem; Ogbiugba Ifeany Henry; Uchanna Cyril; Samuel Obomovo; Israel Ogagaoghene; Israel Diaso; Aghariagbonse Destiny; Aretuemhen Frank, Paul Esibhakpen and Loius Idehen.
Investigations showed that the suspects were involved in love scam with many of them purporting to be officers of the American Army.
Various scam emails, where the suspects posed as officers of the US Army, were traced to them. One of the suspects, Israel Diasco, had successfully defrauded an Indian lady, Promilla Lama, of a huge amount of money still being verified. Another, Chinemerem, (alias Good Thaddy) confessed to be a picker.
A picker is a fraudster that provides foreign accounts to other Internet fraudsters which they usually used to receive money from any unfortunate victim. A picker is allegedly paid 30% of the total amount received in any of such accounts.
He said,
We have noticed that within the last three months, we have the issue of yahoo yahoo boys who appeared to have resurfaced again.
“I am glad to say that with the partnership of the Federal SARS we were able to apprehend some of them”
“The most interesting aspect of it is that we still find people that fall prey to this scam.
“We have Nigerians who pretended that they are American Soldiers that came from Afghanistan and were talking to the Americans as if they are Americans soliciting for fund”
“They extorted money from them through I-tunes. The kind of the I-tunes is $100. They find it difficult to collect the money from Nigeria but they collect I-tunes from them and dispose it online in dollars”
“We have four of them in our custody. We still have others who pretended to be American soldiers working and talking to their victims that there were lots of mineral deposits such as gold.
“They contact people online in China asking them to come and buy the mineral deposits.
“In Nigeria, they collect N5, 000 each from the unsuspecting public, which they receive from banks from Nigeria.”
Obono-Itam said that the commission was aware of newer techniques being used by fraudsters to swindle members of the public.
“Some pretend to be working for organisations that explore mineral deposits, they throw their nets as far as China and other countries,’’ he said.
The EFCC official urged Nigerians to be cautious of privacy of details of their bank accounts to avoid being defrauded.
(NAN)
