The Anambra State Police Command has uncovered a new dimension used by fraudsters to dispossess innocent citizens of their hard earned money through dubious means.
This was disclosed by the spokesman of the Anambra State Police Command, Haruna Mohammed, in a statement on Saturday.
Mohammed said the syndicates migrate from one State to the other with same method of defrauding their unsuspecting victims after getting their vital information through bogus links or fake investment adverts on social media platforms.
One of the methods used by these syndicate is to block the phone lines of their victims account for hours, clone it or re-register the number to generate the customer’s pin and thereafter drain all the money in that account within a shortest period of time.
Mohammed said it was in view of the foregoing and in order to stem the tide of these unscrupulous elements that the Anambra State Police Command embarked on intensive manhunt of the syndicate, which led to the arrest of two suspects: Dr. Madu Ifeanyi, 50, and Linus Onyekwere, 60, both male, of Ugonakpanpa, Onitsha.
Suspects allegedly defrauded Emmanuel Anamene of Odakpu, Onitsha of N1.4 million under the false pretence that they have a common wealth loaning programme where by you pay N500,000 and gain N1 million as interest after a month.
The suspects also claimed to have contracts they executed with “former President Goodluck Jonathan” and the Central Bank of Nigeria.
They requested them to pay N20 million before the contract money will be paid to them.
They told the suspect to bring another sum of N500,000 as others have done to enable them raise the N20 million needed by CBN to enable them get the money from the apex bank.
The complainant added that he has so far given them N1.4 million since September 2020 and has neither received any interest nor the principal he invested and that he has been making several calls to the two suspects till the time of their arrests but they have not been picking his calls.
The complainant further alleged that he is aware many unsuspecting persons have been to the house of the suspects in Onitsha to do similar “investment”, oblivious of their fraudulent motives.
It would be recalled that the Command issued similar alert in September 2020 where fraudsters disguised as CBN staff in charge of all bank transactions, which are non existent, and place phone calls to their targets, whose bio data was downloaded either through Facebook or other social media platforms and then demand from them their date of birth or Biometric Verification Numbers in order to gain access to their account numbers, there by transferring all the money into another account through electronic means.
Mohammed said: “Consequently, the public who fall victims of such syndicates are enjoined to immediately report at the Police Area Command headquarters, Onitsha to enable the police carry out discreet investigation in order to bring perpetrators to justice.”
The Command also urged the public to refrain from availing their personal information, particularly National Identification Numbers, date of birth or Biometric Identification Numbers in order not to fall victims of these fraudulent practices.