A network of 792 people has been arrested in Lagos, Nigeria’s most populated city, for their alleged involvement in a large-scale cryptocurrency fraud scheme and romance scam activity.
The arrest was made public on December 16 by Ola Olukoyede, the Executive Chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The suspects, of various nationalities, including 148 Chinese and 40 Filipinos, two Kazakhstanis, one Pakistani and one Indonesian, were apprehended on December 10 in a surprise operation at their hideout, an imposing building known as Big Leaf Building, on Victoria Island, Lagos.
In a press conference, Olukoyede said that the suspects used the facility, which could be mistaken for a corporate headquarters of a financial establishment, to train their Nigerian accomplices on how to initiate romance and investment scams using phishing techniques.
They also used the identities of their Nigerian accomplices to perpetrate their criminal activities.
The network mainly targeted victims based in the US, Canada, Mexico and Europe.
“All the floors are equipped with high-end desktop computers. On the 5th floor alone, investigators recovered 500 SIM cards of local telcos that were bought for criminal purposes,” Olukoyede said.
Foreigners Training Young Nigerians How to Scam
The young Nigerians are selected for their computer literacy and knowledge of the internet and are provided with two weeks of induction training.
Olukoyede explained: “The foreign nationals usually arm their Nigerian accomplices with desktop computers and mobile devices and create fake profiles for them. The Nigerian accomplices are equally provided with logs that allow them access to foreign communication lines and victims, which they chat with on WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram.”
The Nigerian accomplices are assigned WhatsApp accounts linked to foreign telephone numbers, especially from Germany and Italy, and engage victims in romantic conversations as well as phantom business and investment discussions to trick them into shopping on the purported online investment shopping platform called www[.]yooto[.]com.
“For those who show interest, activation fees for an account on the platform start from $35,” said Olukoyede.
The young Nigerian accomplices are usually paid either in cash or through an individual's account.
Olukoyede highlighted that they likely “do not know the owners of the 'company' they work for because they are not offered letters of appointments or receive payment from a corporate account.”
“Foreigners are taking advantage of our nation's unfortunate reputation as a haven of frauds to establish a foothold here to disguise their atrocious criminal enterprises. But, as this operation has shown, there will be no hiding places for criminals in Nigeria,” he said.
The EFCC is working with its partners to establish the extent of the scam and the accomplices as well as the likelihood of any collaboration with organized international fraud groups.