Good day everyone,
I hope you are all having a good day, welcome to CryptoGod-1's blog on all things crypto. In this post I will be looking at the recent arrests of 792 individuals in Nigeria over a crypto romance scam.
792 Suspects Arrested in Nigeria Romance Scam
The anti-graft agency of Nigeria have announced that 792 suspects have been arrested as part of a raid on a building believed to be a hub for fraudsters of a romance scam organisation. The group lured victims with offers of romance before convincing the victims to send them cash for fraudulent and fake cryptocurrency investments.
Among the suspects are 148 Chinese and 40 Filipino nationals. They were detained on the 10th of December at the seven-storey Big Leaf Building in Lagos, Nigeria. This was announced by Ola Olukoyede, the Executive Chairman for Nigeria's commercial capital, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The arrests took place in a seven story building “which could be mistaken for a corporate headquarters of a financial establishment” according to the EFCC. The building housed a call centre which mostly targeted victims from America and Europe. The people within would make contact via social media with potential victims, and this included WhatsApp and Instagram. From there they would seduce them online before offering apparently lucrative investment opportunities. The EFCC has not provided details on how much money is beleived to have been scammed, but once victims had been lured in they would be pressured to transfer money for fake cryptocurrency schemes and other non-existent projects.
The EFCC stated:
"Nigerian accomplices were recruited by foreign kingpins to prospect for victims online through phishing, targeting mostly Americans, Canadians, Mexicans, and several others from European countries. Once the Nigerians are able to win the confidence of would-be victims, the foreigners would take over the actual task of defrauding the victims."
It was revealed that the Commission was collaborating with international partners as part of the investigation. Within the build there had been "high-end desktop computers" and "500 SIM cards on the fifth floor alone." A number of the scammers working there had been given foreign phone numbers, a lot of the German and Italian.
The workers at the fraud operation had been given a two-week induction on how to impersonate foreign females in romance scam chats and convince them to invest in their cryptocurrency investment scam. However, once the Nigerians had gotten their victims hooked, the foreign entities of the operation took over and blocked their Nigerian accomplices from the network. The foreigners arrested were reportedly involved in the training aspects of Nigerians in how to initiate a romance and investment scam. The EFCC stated:
“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.”
Have a great day.
Peace. CryptoGod-1.
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