• How we defrauded victims of millions of naira, by gang leader
From Molly Kilete,, Abuja
Leader of a three-man cybercrime criminal gang has opened up to the police. He told them how they siphoned millions of naira hacking into social media handles, including WhatsApp, e-mail addresses and bank accounts of innocent Nigerians and foreigners alike.
The suspects, cooling their heels in police cell, said they have been in the illegal business for over 15 years. The suspects, Chinedu, Lucky and Ndifreke, were arrested by operatives of the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC).
Their arrest followed a petition from one Mallam Yasir Hassan Isah, who said he was contacted via his Whatsapp by one of his old-time friends, a business associate, requesting him to send some money to him. He never knew he was dealing with criminals, he immediately sent the money in tranches to his distressed ‘friend.’
Trouble started when, after sending N22 million, his friend kept asking for more money. At that point, he got uncomfortable and decided to contact his friend to confirm why he was making such demands after sending him the huge amount. But his calls were not answered on that day, being June 4, 2024.
He decided to repeat the call the second day, only to find out that the WhatsApp handle of his friend had been hacked. Realising that he had been scammed, he immediately reported the matter to the NPF-NCCC. Its operatives arrested the suspects and they confessed to the crime.
The leader of the group, who said he has been in the hacking business for 15 years, told Daily Sun how they got into the fraudulent business. He said they made huge amounts of money, which they shared among themselves.
On how they operated, Lucky said they sometimes got their victims online, especially those who advertise their products online. He said they hacked Whatsapp handles by placing a call to their victims and telling them about a Zoom meeting to be organised by their offices or WhatsApp group and then asked them to send a six-digit number sent to their phone number to them:
“Once you do that, we will hack you out and start using your number the way you use your Whatsapp. At that point you won’t be receiving any Whatsapp message, we will be doing so on your behalf. We will now get your contacts, requesting for money from your friends and family members that you have an emergency that will make them send money quickly to us.
“Because we have successfully hacked into their WhatsApp account, their relatives would believe they are dealing with their brother and send us the money through a bank account number that we will send to them. We do that for as long as we can until they disconnect us.”
On how they hacked email accounts, he said: “What we do is to first send friendly messages to them to win their confidence and from there we will strike.
“We hit them by introducing them to business that never exits, promising them huge amounts of money as profits. As soon as they show interest, we start by demanding small amounts of money from them.
“Later, we demand huge sums without them knowing we are defrauding them. It is only those who are wise that they have been scammed quit and block us from having access to their emails.
“In the case of hacking into bank accounts of customers. We monitor people on social media, make friends with them and continue to chat them up, especially on Facebook. As the relationship grows, we will then ask them for their bank account number so we can send them welfare.
“Some of them will tell us they don’t have account number. We will ask them to go and open an account with any of the banks.
“When they do, we will ask them if they collected ATM card and if they say no, we will then ask them to go and get one. When they eventually get one, we ask them to send the account number and the ATM card. Without asking much question, we will then arrange for where we will meet to get the ATM card from them.
“We usually use their account number to give to our victims to pay money into and use their ATM cards to withdraw the money so as not to be arrested by the police.
“Sometimes, I deceive my victims to make them believe that they are talking to three different people whereas I am the only one they are relating with. I usually use what we call the voice changing app.
“What I do majorly is to lure people to open an account. When they do, we give it out to our victims for them to be able to send money to that account.
“One major thing that I operate with is a voice changing app. I use the app to control my victims and tell them where to deliver the ATM card. By using the app, I make sure my victim does not recognise my particular voice.”