•Criminals utilise GSM, ICT platforms to dupe unsuspecting Nigerians
By Job Osazuwa
Nowadays, fraudsters are everywhere. They are roaming the streets like hungry dogs looking for food. Their sights are set on defrauding unsuspecting members of the public whose bank accounts they are often targeting.
On a daily basis, virtually everyone these days receives one message or the other from fraudsters exploiting the opportunities offered by the network providers. The thieves want their targets to perform one form of operation or the other to ‘solve’ a challenge.
Some of the fraudsters issue messages that purport to be coming from either commercial banks, telecomm companies, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) or companies.
The scammers also use Yahoo mail accounts as tools for connecting with their targets. Their messages are carefully crafted to deceive.
GSM, cybercrime and e-fraud, according to the chief security officer/supervisor of AbleTech Securities, Lagos, Mr. Muyiwa Adepoju, constitute any criminal activity performed, with the aid of computers, computer networks, the Internet and cell phones. He added that the crime is usually performed with the aid of a network platform or device.
“The criminals manipulate their unsuspecting targets through spurious telephone messaging, phone calls and electronic mails with fake but enticing messages. The information is often a demand of some sort, which sometimes unsettles the receiver. Some can cause apprehension or excitement, depending on the delivery.
“Some of the messages simply alert their receivers to a certain deduction or an impending deduction of some amount of money from their accounts, a development that can cause them some anxiety,” he said.
He further said that the thieves could excite their target by alerting them that they had won some amount of money even when they didn’t participate in any promo. They usually issue some requirement on how to claim the money, which in the end turns out to be fraud.
Many have fallen for the fraudsters’ antics. The victims were not smart enough to know that the fraudsters were out to do them harm.
As always, fraudsters, also known as 419-ners, are educated people deploying their education to crime. Before now, they used fax machines and sent letters to their targets.
But today, things have changed. Daily Sun gathered that most of the fraudsters are youths, as graduates and undergraduates are actively involved in Internet scam. Some of them develop programmes and computer applications that aid them in hacking into systems and systematically cracking the network of companies and other organisations.
Some of the fraudsters audaciously call their targets and make overtures to them to participate in some spurious schemes.
Some groups specialise in sending SMS messages, alerting their targets to the de-activation of their automated teller machines (ATM) cards by the CBN. They ask them to call a given number to re-activate their bank verification numbers (BVNs).
After receiving such messages, many would spare no time in responding to them, having been thrown into panic mode. Messages like this flood some GSM users’ devices these days.
For instance, a retiree in Lagos, Mr. Uchenna Ogbonna, almost fell for this trick, but his children rallied to rescue him. His children had overheard him conversing with the scammer. So, they stepped in at the point where he was about to disclose his ATM PIN to the caller who pretended to be a CBN staff.
Ogbonna’s daughter said: “Thank God we were home at that very hour when the criminals called. They would have emptied our father’s bank account.
“We heard daddy frantically looking for his ATM card. He wanted to send his number to him to rectify a purported error in his account.
“It was at that point that we knew that the call was a fraud. So, we simply snatched the phone from him, thereby abruptly ending the call.”
Recently, a message sent by one of the fraudsters to Mr. Wale Banjo, a staff of one of the national newspapers, read: “ATM blocked: Dear customer, due to our system upgrade, your ATM card has just been blocked. To reactivate, call CBN Customer Care on 07037026812 now.”
A similar message received by Mrs Immaculate O. read: “Dear customer, due to our system upgrade, your ATM card has just been de-activated. To re-activate it, call Customer Care on 07030728258.”
The message sent to Adeola Adams, a computer programmer in Lagos, was not different. The message sent through 09035515487 read: “Dear customer, your ATM card and account have been blocked due to BVN registration failure. Quickly call Customer Care line on 09068333888 to re-register.”
She said few days later, another message sent from another line came with a deadline. The message sent from 09038215885 read: “Your ATM card account has been blocked due to BVN system error … call 08160286177 within 24 hours.”
When the reporter placed a call to 09068333888, the receiver, a male voice, sounded educated and composed.
Having explained to him that the call was in respect of the “blocked account,” he said: “This is Martins of the CBN. Please duly and quickly follow the instructions so that your account can be re-activated. Please feel safe to give your account number, full name, location and BVN to our head of operations, whom I will connect you to now.”
By the time the reporter revealed his identity as a journalist investigating the authenticity of the operation he abruptly ended the conversation and hung up.
Daily Sun investigation further revealed that the victims of these fraudsters were usually individuals or groups who, out of negligence or ignorance, allowed them access to their bank details. Once the target divulged his information, that was what the fraudsters required to wreck them in one fell swoop.
According to a recent forensic investigation, Nigeria, in the past decade, has experienced a rapid increase in Internet fraud and GSM crimes. This might have to do with the increasing number of people who have adopted ICT.
Despite several warnings by the CBN and commercial banks to depositors to disregard spurious messages sent to them, the trend has persisted.
Stepping up their game, fraudsters now clone the web pages of various banks and make them look real to the undiscerning targets. Such fake sites are built in such a way that it is difficult for people to spot the difference between the real and the fake.
Adepoju said that majority of ATM fraud occur through card skimming and other technology-based activities.
He also disclosed that friends, relatives and associates of account holders working in association with fraudsters could equally give away a target.
The security expert cautioned Nigerians to watch their back more carefully when making withdrawals from ATMs, noting that thieves were smart enough to clone PIN numbers and use them on other cards.
“Majority of ATM fraud take place through card skimming,” Adepoju said, “criminals typically install an illegal card-reading device into ATMs to film people entering their PINs on keypads, and then create duplicated cards for sale and use.”
But the CBN has said that ATM skimming was not common in Nigeria because the country uses the chip and pin cards which are hard to clone compared to the magnetic strip card in use in the USA and in other advanced countries.
According to Olumide Fadia, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, OFMAX Integrated Services Limited, a company that installs and maintains ATMs, this kind of fraud could not happen in Nigeria because the CBN had directed that all ATMs installed in Nigeria must come with an anti-skimming device.
Mr. Dipo Fatokun, director of CBN’s Banking and Payment Systems, explained that the CBN had in 2014 and 2015 introduced two-factor authentication system for banks, to guide all financial transactions, the regulation of a non-EMV card, as well as the creation of fraud desk in all banks. He said such measures helped in reducing banks’ financial losses. According to him, the stringent measures put in place by the CBN had helped in reducing the rate of successful online theft in the country.