The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has expressed concern over a rising fraudulent scheme perfected by fraudsters to defraud Nigerians of their hard-earned money.
EFCC, in a post on its official X account, noted that the scheme involves the use of malware to gain unauthorised access to the account information of unsuspecting victims.
Teasers like ‘Promo Investment Windows’ and other baits have been employed to make their victims volunteer their account information through which fraudsters execute transactions on their behalf by sending their funds to accounts mainly in fintech institutions.
“Through this access, fraudsters then control and launder the funds through purchase of crypto currencies,” EFCC stated.
The commission cited a case of a promo offering the public 50 percent discount of ticket purchase in a leading foreign airline.
Victims were led to pay a token of N500 into the account of the airline. The N500 payment which was dressed as charity payment, and gateway through which the fraudsters gained access to their victim’s personal information.
The victims were deceived into downloading the app of the airline to be eligible for the discount. However, after downloading the app and gaining unauthorised access to their personal details, funds were moved from the victim’s bank account into an account in a microfinance Bank.
EFCC stated that the fraud scheme was largely perpetrated by young Nigerians offering payments of between N1500 and N2000 to their victims to make them surrender a copy of their personal information details to them and sell the same information to some fintech institutions for about N5000.
“These canvassers called themselves “Account Suppliers” or “KYC Group”. Information available to the Commission revealed that the actors are up to 12000 all over the country seeking account donors that will surrender their NIN registration slip, BVN, passport photograph and other means of identification for a small fee,” the EFCC said.
The commission noted that this information is then used to open accounts with fintech companies for investment scam and sundry fraudulent schemes.
According to the commission, it has made some arrests in this regard and recovered some money lost to these frauds.
“Members of the public are enjoined to be wary of these actors and on no account should any Nigerian agree to be an Account Donor for any purpose as this is a threat to national security,” it added.
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