The Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) recently arrested 792 suspects involved in crypto romance scams.
Scams traced to foreign kingpins
Nigeria’s anti-corruption body, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), recently arrested 792 suspects involved in crypto romance scams. The arrests followed a raid on a building believed to be a hub for scammers who lured victims to invest in fake cryptocurrency projects.
EFCC spokesperson Wilson Uwujaren said 148 of the suspects are Chinese nationals and 40 are Filipino nationals. According to a Reuters report, the gang operated from a luxury building in Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos. American and European citizens were among the targeted citizens. During the raid, EFCC operatives confiscated computers, phones and vehicles.
“The foreign kingpins recruited Nigerian accomplices to search for victims online through phishing, mainly targeting Americans, Canadians, Mexicans and several others from European countries,” the EFCC spokesperson said.
He added that after gaining the trust of the victims, the Nigerian suspects would hand them over to their foreign counterparts, who would then carry out the fraudulent part of the scam. Uwujaren also revealed that the EFCC is collaborating with international partners and investigating possible links to organized crime.
Reports of the EFCC’s arrest of the 792 suspects come days after it arrested a Nigerian man accused of defrauding 139 Australians of US$5.04 million (A$8 million) in an elaborate fraud scam. cryptocurrencies. The man, Osang Otukpa, is said to have used five aliases and allegedly lured victims through social media to invest in a fraudulent cryptocurrency platform called Liquid Asset Group.
Otukpa’s luck finally ran out on December 6, when officers detained him shortly after landing at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos. According to a report by Punch, Otukpa will be charged once the EFCC concludes its investigations.
