An Internet scam suspect, Elom Nzube,
says he hacked into the Twitter account of a Tanzanian, Dr. Reginald
Remengi, in order to “just impersonate” him.
Nzube, 25, reportedly reached out to
Mrs. Tinu Abiola, the Managing Director, HTM International Nigeria Ltd, a
friend of Remengi.
The suspect was paraded by the police in Abuja on Friday for allegedly blackmailing Abiola and attempting to extort $5,000 from her.
He was said to have also hacked into
Abiola’s Twitter accounts and threatened to tarnish her image if she did
not pay him the said amount.
Nzube admitted to hacking into Abiola’s Twitter account, but denied extorting money from her.
He said, “I hacked into Dr Remengi’s
Twitter account and I used it to chat with Abiola while posing as
Remengi, but I didn’t extort any money from her.
What happened was that
somebody sent a link to me, which he used to hack my Twitter account. I
suspected that Abiola must have sent the link to me because immediately I
clicked on it, I couldn’t access my account again.
“So I hacked into Remengi’s account and
pretended to be him while chatting with Abiola. I can no longer access
my PayPal account, where I have $700 which I wanted to use to rent an
apartment.”
Nzube, a barber, claimed that he generated the money in his PayPal account from marketing health products online.
The Force Public Relations Officer,
Olabisi Kolawole, said Abiola petitioned the Inspector-General of
Police, Solomon Arase, on December 1, 2015, after Nzube attempted to
extort money from her.
She said, “On the strength of the
petition, detectives assigned to carry out investigation into the case
found out that the suspect fraudulently fabricated a story using his
professional knowledge in computer applications to design a human skull,
attached same to the photograph of the complainant and created a web
page with Vanguard newspapers media logo, which he used to blackmail the
petitioner internationally.”
According to her, the suspect confessed
to have blackmailed several suspects locally and internationally “among
who are Prof. Toyin Ajao, a lecturer at the University of Pretoria,
South Africa; Senator Raji Rauf, and Sam Kurk of England.”
Kolawole advised Nigerians to be
diligent in keeping their social accounts passwords to avoid falling
prey to Internet fraudsters.
Punch Newspapers
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