The
Police Special Fraud Unit, PSFU, has smashed a syndicate which specialises in
designing multinational organisations’ websites to defraud unsuspecting members
of the public, particularly applicants, and arrested six members, Vanguard
reports.
Among the
suspects are a first class honours graduate and two final year students of the
Federal University of Technology Akure, FUTA.
The
suspects’ modus operandi, according to the unit, includes using logos of
multinational companies to place online advertisements for jobs and
scholarships and demanding application fee from interested individuals.
Luck ran
out for the suspects after the unit received a petition from the Organisation
of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, last August, that a website designed as
‘OFID Scholarship Website’ (OPEC Fund for International Development for World
Student Aid Scholarship) with OFID name and logo is being used to
defraud unsuspecting Nigerian applicants.
Explaining
how they were arrested, spokesperson for the unit, Ngozi Isintume-Agu, a Deputy
Superintendent of Police, said: “The petition dated August 22, 2013, said in
the website, applicants were required to pay a fee of N2,500 and over 2,000
applicants responded through First Bank account number 2020874607 and Access
Bank account number 0056941009 with the name, OFID WSAS NG.
“The
Cybercrime Section of the unit swung into action and the mastermind of the
fraud, one Falade Oluwapelumi Ayotunde, was arrested and this led to the arrest
of others”
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