The shocking method used by fraudsters to swindle bank customers has
been exposed after Operatives of the Police’ Special Fraud Unit (PSFU)
Ikoyi, Lagos State, arrested suspects who are allegedly involved in
swindling customers using a sophisticated method. Those arrested include
a pastor, 2 MTN employees, 3 bankers, an ICT specialist and others.
The
police disclosed that the suspects belong to a syndicate that
specializes in defrauding bank customers. With the help of the
unscrupulous bankers arrested, the gang are able to get the details of
customers with funded account while the 2 MTN staff work to ensure that
the victims' mobile numbers are tampered with in such a way that they do
not receive alert that money is being diverted from their account.
The
suspects have allegedly defrauded subscribers of over N150 million. The
spokesman for the SFU, ASP Lawal Audu paraded the suspects. Chukwunonso
Ifeanyi, 30, and Okpetu John, 29, who both confirmed they were MTN
employees, were paraded alongside the bankers, Oyelade Shola, 32;
Osuolale Hammid, 40; and Akeem Adesina, 33. Others include an ICT
specialist, Salako Abdulsalam, 30; a pastor, James Idagu, 56; Sarumi
Abubakar; Ismaeel Salami, 49; Akinola Oghuan, 34; and Sunday Okeke, 33, The Guardian reports.
The
suspects were arrested in Lagos, Oyo and Kwara states with several
Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cards belonging to unsuspecting
Nigerians. According to Audu, the MTN staff involved in the crime
blocked phone numbers of victims thereby preventing computer-generated
text messages of transaction from being delivered to account owners, so
the victims are unaware of what's going on and therefore are unable to
stop the shady transaction in time.
Audu said: “The suspects
transferred the money siphoned into about 40 other accounts with ATM in
different banks. They usually carry out their operations at weekends and
public holidays to avoid being detected by the bank monitoring
mechanisms or the owners of targeted funded accounts. The effort of the
police team eventually paid off when the same group was holding their
final meeting at Domino Pizza eatery along Bode Thomas Street, Surulere,
on the plan to unleash another monumental fraud on unsuspecting
customers.
“Their plan was to defraud some bank customers between May 26 and 29.
Detectives stormed the venue during which one of the major kingpin,
Alhaji Ismaeel Salami, and four members of the syndicate were arrested.”
Chukwunonso
Ifeanyi denied being involved in the crime and said he suspected
engineers at MTN headquarters as those behind the fraud. He disclosed it
was the fourth time it has happened in his branch and explained someone
must have used his access to commit the fraud.
He said: “I have
no hand in that fraud. Someone used my access to do it and it was the
fourth time it happened within a month. The first time, they used my
Manager’s access, within two weeks,
it was the Assistant Manager’s. The next person was a colleague before
mine was used. All the times it happened, we were told to change our
passwords, which we did. I suspect the engineers at the headquarters
because they are the ones who usually gave us access to the systems.”
However,
MTN PR Manager, Funso Aina, told The Guardian that those paraded were
not MTN workers. Aina said "they are employees of a distribution partner
who runs a Connect Store.”
Tuesday, 11 July 2017
How pastor, 2 MTN employees, 3 bankers swindled customers of N150m
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