The Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) on Thursday said it had arrested three suspects for alleged conspiracy and obtaining N7.1m by false pretence in Benue.
This was contained in a press statement signed by its Zonal Head, Public Affairs Department, Nwanyinma Okeanu, and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Makurdi.
Ms Okeanu in the statement named the suspects as: Adewuyi Adebayo, 31, Osikoya Gboyega, 44, and Akintunde Ogunrinde, 47.
She explained that the suspects were arrested at different locations in Lagos on September 9, following a petition received by the commission from a complainant.
“The petitioner alleged that on 18th of February, 2018, he noticed his MTN line 08062751577 had stopped working as no calls or messages came to his phone and the phone displayed a message saying, ‘invalid SIM card’.
“He went to the MTN office to lodge a complaint but was told to apply for a welcome back SIM that someone else had swapped his SIM card in Abia State.
“He immediately contacted his account officer at FCMB bank to inform them of the development and to change his alert phone number to another line only to discover that transactions had occurred on his account without his consent.
“The threshold limit for online transfers on his account had also been increased above five hundred thousand Naira and the sum of seven million, one hundred and Seven thousand, five hundred and forty Naira (N7,107,540.00) removed from his account.”
The statement said further investigations revealed that a syndicate comprising of Messrs Adebayo, Gboyega, Ogunrinde, and others now at large, were allegedly behind the fraud.
She said during interrogation, the suspects claimed that one ‘Alhaji White’ was their leader but could not provide his full name.
“Alhaji White is alleged to have met with Akintunde Ogunrinde a.k.a Kekere for a UBA account number. Ogunrinde approached Osikoya Gboyega who then approached Adewuyi Adebayo.
“Adebayo supplied the account number used for the business.”
She said the suspects would be charged to court as soon as investigations were concluded.
(NAN)