EFCC’s trap catches
internet rat
By Juliana Francis
Thursday, July 26, 2007
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•Falore
Pix: Sun News Publishing |
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A suspected internet fraudster met his waterloo recently
when he was apprehended by operatives of the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on his way to church.
Chinedu Uzoechi, 34, is believed to be a notorious advance
fee fraud specialist. Indeed, he confessed that he had been
in the illegal business since 2003.
He was nabbed after a new generation bank wrote a petition
to the EFCC, explaining that its website was illegally designed
and was being used for some nefarious activities.
Working through an informant, operatives of the commission
learned that one Olatunji Joseph Falore, living in Festac
Town was behind the illegal website. Falore was said to have
confessed that he designed the website for Uzoechi.
He admitted that his company was not registered.
A thorough search of Uzoechi’s apartment yielded many
documents, all suspected to be fake. They include letterheads
of Federal Ministry of Finance, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN),
Federal Inland Revenue Services, High Court of Lagos, European
Commission, Dominion Trust Finance Company, NNPC, NDLEA and
EFCC. Death certificates were also found in the house.
Also discovered in Falore’s home was a laptop which
contained several e-mail addresses. Uzoechi told detectives
during interrogation that he became a fraudster due to poverty.
According to him, he decided to venture into internet crime
after the man he served for four years, refused to set up
a business for him as agreed.
Uzoechi further claimed that his late friend, Chocho, introduced
him to 419 businesses. As his ambition grew, Uzoechi decided
to explore new fields. However, the quest for more conquest
led to Falore’s downfall. He revealed that the fake
documents and scam letters found in his house were used to
fool victims into believing that he was a genuine businessman
or a staffer of any of the companies he claimed to be working
for. He insisted that he downloaded most of the documents
from the internet.
As for the death certificates, Uzoechi claimed that he used
to issue them to people who were desperately in need of them.
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