The Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in collaboration with the Italian
Police said it arrested 62 people from Nigeria and Cameroon suspected to
be members of a cyber criminal organisation.
The EFCC spokesman, Mr
Wilson Uwujaren, in a statement in Abuja on Thursday said the suspects
were responsible for frauds committed against small and medium scale
enterprises across the world.
Uwujaren said the
raid that led to the arrest of the suspects were carried out in June by
750 officers from Italian, Spanish, Polish, English, Belgian, Georgian,
Turkish and Cameroonian police.
He said the group, devoted to laundering
activities involving large amounts of money obtained by means of
state-of-the-art phishing techniques uses a particular attack called in
hacking jargon, "man-in-the-middle".
"The operation is
carried out by illegally, accessing e-mail boxes of Italian and foreign
companies through hacking and social engineering techniques that enabled
the criminals to meddle in trade relations.
"The final result of the
raid is remarkable with 62 individuals arrested, 82 house searches
executed with 40,000 Euros, 30 smart phones, 10 tablets and 15 personal
computers seized," he said.
The spokesman said
the EFCC was able to track down three fugitives in their homes in Lagos
following information gathered from the Postal and Communications Police
in Italy during the raid.
He said that computers, mobile phones, SIM
cards, several storage media as well as bank documents linked to
suspected criminal activities were recovered from the suspects during
the raid in Lagos.
According to him,
the EFCC has started an independent investigation that will allow it to
confirm the connection with the dismantled group through the Italian
investigation. Uwujaren said the investigation would also help to
identify new criminal links with South Africa, Ghana, Gambia, China,
UAE, Kenya and Spain.
No comments:
Post a Comment