 |
| Ezechukwu |
No! That wasn’t their purpose.
Their original minds were on how
to use the social network bring everybody together to exchange messages, and
receive automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally,
users may perhaps join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace,
school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into
lists such as "People from Work" or "Close Friends".
But barely a week to Facebook
decade of celebration by February next month, a 34 year-old Nigerian graduate of the Lagos State
University, Anthony
Ezechukwu, is now telling Mark
Zuckerberg and his team what they failed to include as one of the things
Facebook could do-fraud!
Unlike Zuckerberg,
Ezechukwu has turned Facebook as a weapon of stealing other people’s hard
earned money by posing as a First Lady, Governor, Minister, Senator or House of
Representative Member, including Minister’s wife on Facebook. Working on the
gullibility of few Nigerians who are crazy about having influential people as
their friends on the social networking service, the alleged fraudster hacked on
the Facebook account of the prominent politicians and their wives and posed as
if he was the huge figures he claimed on the faked profiles with their
photographs and names and solicit for friends via Facebook. Even, those he
didn’t solicit, fall on their own sighting the photographs of the political
figures on the false Facebook account.
However, and like the
early morning bird, Ezechukwu kept his trap-mouth agap and watched multitude of
preys disappeared in his mouth, as his friends on Facebook grows to millions
apparently thinking that they were really friends to the right persons.
For the period the alleged
crook reigned on Facebook as Dame Fashola, Okonjo- Iweala and other high profile
personalities, he was never5 in scare of money. Ezechukwu was counting money
both in dollars and Naira and there was nothing he laid his light-finger that
he couldn’t buy because money wasn’t his problem. Every day, money was flowing
into his accounts through his victims until the bubble burst. How was Ezechukwu
arrested? Economic and Financial Crimes Commission quizzed the alleged Facebook
fraudster when he had gone to; as usual withdraw another chunk of money that
had hits his account on that fateful afternoon. According to the EFCC, the Commission has uncovered a sophisticated
web of trickery involving a 34 year-old graduate of the Lagos State University.
Wilson Uwujaren, the Commission’s spokesman stated that Anthony Ezechukwu uses the names of spouses of prominent Nigerian
political figures and others holding key offices in the corridors of power to
dupe unsuspecting members of the public.
He disclosed that Ezechukwu
allegedly cloned the Facebook accounts of the wife of Lagos State governor,
Abimbola Fashola; Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy,
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; wife of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory,
Aisha Bala Muhammad and the Director of the Abuja Geographical Information
Systems, Jamilah Tangaza to defraud his victims. “Then, he went on a
solicitation binge that fetched him thousands of naira.
In each of the instances,
he devised clever baits to lure his victims”, Uwujaren added. “Once he
successfully opened a Facebook account with the false identity of a Mrs Fashola,
first lady of Lagos State, he began to send out messages. Soon, requests for
friendship flooded his account”.
The suspect, who is now
under investigation, was alleged to have exploited the frenzy by the uncritical
Facebook crowd that wanted to be friends with a first lady, and directed some
of them to meet with ‘her personal assistant’, who in turn demanded for various
sums of money from them in order to connect them with influential people in
government and the society.
Not done with the cloned
account of the Lagos State First lady in the Facebook he opened, he moved on to
open another account using the name and photograph of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Ezechukwu allegedly claimed he had job offers
and directed interested job seekers to ‘her schedule officer’ (he also doubles
as schedule officer), who in turn asked them to make payments into a designated
bank accounts.
“The exploits of Ezechukwu
would have gone unnoticed until he overreached himself by cloning the Facebook
account of Jamilah Tangaza”, EFCC Spokesman revealed. With his address as
www.Facebook.com/agis.jamilahtangaza.9 Ezechukwu set about exploiting the
office of the influential AGIS boss to have his cut of the lucrative apple that
is Abuja property sector.
His taunt came in the form
of a message: “In my certified, endorsed and approved capacity, as the director
general of Abuja Geographical Information system, AGIS, officially appointed by
FCT minister (Senator Bala Mohammed) and his administration on presidency
acceptance and approvals (sic) to take control of all lands and houses sales
(sic) in FCT Abuja. Then I warned, using this medium to advised (sic) the
general public those who wish to buy land and houses in FCT Abuja to channel
all their inquiries, consultation and payment to me...”, the alleged fraudster
stated in his incoherent grammer.
The poorly constructed
message notwithstanding, some persons who are desperate to own land or houses
in the FCT fell for it and began to wire money into his account. Without a
doubt, land speculation turned out a goldmine for the scammer.
The Facebook account he
opened in the name of the wife of the FCT minister, Aisha Muhammad was where he
made so much money. According to the EFCC, it was the one that turned out to be
very rewarding.
He started with a post on
the Facebook account where he claimed that the FCT had soft loan worth
N10million for disbursement to individuals. For the loan, he offered forms to
interested persons at the rate of N100, 000.
Unknown to the public that
it was a scam, one Usman Ahmed allegedly paid the sum of N100, 000 into a
designed account with a new generation bank.
“Ezechukwu was however
nabbed following a complaint by Tangaza. He is currently assisting
investigators probing the scam and will be arraigned in court as soon as
investigation is concluded”, Uwujaren quipped.
“The EFCC seizes this
opportunity to again warn members of the public to be wary of relationships in
the social media that come with solicitations of any kind, and circumspect in
responding to gratuitous offers that look too good to be true”, the Commission
stated in its press release made available to Daily Newswatch. In another development, the EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde has
called for collaboration between the anti-graft agency and the Association of Stock
broking Houses of Nigeria, ASHON, to rid the capital market of incidence of
money laundering, fraud and imposters. Lamorde made the call on Tuesday,
January 21, 2014 when executive members of ASHON paid him a courtesy visit at
the Commission’s head office in Abuja.
Lamorde said he was concerned about how proceeds of crime
were invested in the capital market and called on the association to be
vigilant and notify the Commission of suspicious transactions, especially when
so called politically exposed person invest heavily in securities for under
aged dependants.
He also charged the association to engage in sensitization
and enlightenment campaign so that Nigerians could decipher a genuine
stockbroker from a quack.
“People find it difficult to identify the real brokers and
if there are imposters you know of, that you are finding difficult to get, let
us know,” he said.
The EFCC chairman called on the ASHON members to tackle the
problem of unclaimed dividends and the negative perception about the capital
market.
“The economy strives well if the capital market is doing
very well and the integrity of the capital market depends on the brokers”.
Emeka Madubuike who led the 4-man delegation thanked the
chairman for making out time to receive them. He explained that the association
was formed in 2006 to protect the interest of the members, ensure that
businesses were done the proper way, reach out to other stakeholders within the
economy involved in stock business and advocacy.
He solicited for the support of the Commission to tackle
fraud and other related crimes in the industry.
“Since the EFCC is interested in money laundering issues,
it is pertinent that both organization work out modalities to combat it,” he
said. He called for the organization of a workshop and training programme for
both organizations which, according to him, will create better understanding of
how the market works.
Aside the executive chairman, other management staff who
received the visitors include Olaolu Adegbite, Director of Operations; Bolaji
Salami, Director, Organisational Support; Chile Okoroma, Director, legal and
prosecution; Bukar Abba, Director, Finance and Account; Mohammed Wakili,
Director, Department of Internal Affairs and Francis Usani, Ag. Director,
NFIU.
A forensic expert warned the
Nigerian Facebook users that it’s high time they began to know who they add as their
friends on the social media, especially the highly patronized Facebook.
According to him, all that
glitters are not gold, adding that those who are anxious to add influential
persons as their Facebook friends should play caution as their mantra.
No comments:
Post a Comment