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Noah Ebije, Kaduna
Operatives of the Kaduna Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have arrested six suspected fraudsters who specialised in defrauding innocent Nigerians by using bank details obtained through sim swaps and Automated Teller Machines (ATM).
The suspects included, an Inspector with the Enugu Command of Nigerian Correctional Service, Henry, Owete, Obinna, Chidiebere, Kingsley and Izuchukwu.
The suspects were arrested in separate operations, sequel to a petition by a customer of Access Bank, alleging that monies were illegally transferred from his account without his authorisation. According to the petitioner, sometime in February 2019, he opened an account with Diamond Bank (now Access Bank) which he funded to the tune of N5 million and instructed the bank to open a fixed deposit account with N1 million from the earlier account, as opening balance.
The complainant said he was receiving regular alerts until the end of March when the alerts stopped coming, prompting him to demand his statement of account from the bank. Upon receipt of his bank statement, he discovered to his chagrin that N2,911,480 million had fraudulently been transferred to several accounts between April 5-9, 2 without his authorisation.
Upon the receipt of the petition, the zonal office of the EFCC , traced some of the funds to three of the suspects, Obinna, N1,500.000; Chidiebere, N210,000 and Kingsley, N300 000.The suspects were promptly arrested.
Further investigation revealed that Henry, Owete, who was earlier arrested and paraded by the Enugu State Police Command for crimes bordering on conspiracy and armed robbery and Izuchukwu were equally involved in the fraud.
EFCC recovered a Toyota Camry, documents of two plots of land, two Nigeria Housing Fund Passbook, 17 ATM cards of different banks bearing different names, Two Nigerian Correctional Service Identity cards, two smartphones, two Nokia phones, one NHIS card, one voter card, 26 Starter Packs and 15 SIM cards of various networks from the suspects.
