The Ibadan Zonal Office of Economics and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arrested two suspected internet fraudsters for stealing people’s identities online to defraud foreign nationals.
Mr Tony Orilade, the EFCC spokesman, made this known in a statement made available to newsmen on Wednesday in Ibadan.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the anti-graft agency had in recent time arrested a number of suspects for the same offence.
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Orilade said the suspects, aged 31 and 35, respectively were arrested at different locations in Ibadan following intelligence on their alleged involvement in internet fraud.
According to him, after diligent examination of data and documents retrieved from them, the commission was able to establish enough ground for prosecuting them.
“It was established that the suspects engaged in acts contrary to the provisions of Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) Act, 2015 and would be accordingly charged to court soon.’’
He said one of them was fond of mining information from online sites and in possession of personal information.
Orilade said the suspect usually operate with two email accounts, one of which was personal, while the other supposedly official, to penetrate his victims and dispossess them of their hard-earned money.
He said investigations also established that he deploy fake identity to engage foreigners in romantic affairs with the intention to defraud them.
“Findings revealed various lodgements from his foreign victims into his Nigerian bank accounts,’’ he said.
Orilade said other suspect had admitted in his confessional statement to be falsely representing himself as one Chris Dan, a 40-year-old Briton, working with the UN.
He said he had confessed to have used the white man’s picture to lure his victims into romantic relationships and thereafter solicit for money from them.
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“He confessed that he solicit money from them allegedly to enable him to pay for his flight ticket to pay them scheduled visits.
“After much familiarisation, he would then device other tricks to swindle them the more,’’ Orilade said.
He said the two suspects were helping the commission with relevant information for further investigations into activities of their partners.
Orilade said one IPhone Xmax and one Toyota Venza were recovered from one of the suspects at the point of arrest.
A Toyota Venza, one Toyota Camry, two Macbook, one Apple Ipad, one iPhone Xmax, one iPhone 5, one Infinix phone, two hard drives and one HP printer were recovered from the other. (NAN)