Police Apprehend Internet Fraudsters In Lagos

Mr. Imohimi Edgal, the Lagos state commissioner of police, says the Force has paraded a group of criminals known for transferring funds using stolen SIM cards and phones.

Speaking in Lagos on Tuesday, Edgal said the gang comprised of three splinter groups visiting choice locations in the state to rob members of the public of valuable assets.

The mob, according to the Lagos CP, specialises in robbing Lagosians of their mobile phones and turning over the SIM cards to hackers who get hold of the account details of its owners and transfer its balances to their respective accounts.

Mr Edgal noted that the group hands over the SIMs to another set of people that would, through special computer apps, get the bank account details of the owners and thereafter get the account balances.

Edgal added that the balance of the account is transferred into different accounts sourced by another set of suspects.

The suspects will through computer apps, retrieve the names, bank details of the original owner of the SIM, including BVN. The recovered details are used to determine the account balance.

Money in the account are transferred into different accounts sourced by the third group.

The activities of the group were brought to the attention of the Decoy Team of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) when they stole the phone of one Yinka at a birthday party in Egbeda area.

They worked on the phone’s SIM card and transferred N1, 153,000 from her account. Yinka only got to know of the transactions when she inserted the replaced SIM into a new phone.

According to Muhammed, an SS 2 drop out of Ojo High Secondary School, Lagos, he started hacking into bank accounts of people in June 2017. “My first hit was N20k. All the SIMs that I have worked on should be up to 47”, he said.