Molly Kilete, Abuja and Christopher Oji
The police yesterday said it has arrested Onwuka Emmanuel Chidiebere, who specialised in business email compromise and hacking.
The suspect, a graduate of Business Administration from Imo State University, was said to have hacked over 50,000 email accounts and websites, including passwords of various individuals and corporate entities across the world on his laptop after comprehensive forensic analysis conducted on him.
Force public relations officer, Frank Mba, who made this known, said the police also arrested two other suspects, Onuegwu Ifeanyi, aka SSGToolz, and Ikechukwu Ohanedozie, aka Dozzy, 34, who specialized in creating, designing, selling of phishing links and hosting malwares on website used by the gang for phishing and hacking purposes and collects charges running into millions of naira from other fraudsters who he mentors and improves their phishing capabilities.
The suspects were said to have been arrested following an intelligence report received from the INTERPOL cybercrime Directorate in Singapore on global attacks by Nigerian cyber gangs who engage in mass email phishing campaigns and distribution of malwares aimed at stealing authentication data from browsers and email header.
Mba, in a statement, also said that the police had launched a cybercrime Reporting Web Portal in its effort to curb cybercrime and other related offenses.
The statement reads: “The Nigeria Police Force has unveiled a Cybercrime Reporting Web Portal. The portal which can be accessed by clicking on the link https://incb.police.gov.ng/ is part of efforts directed at ensuring ease of crime reportage by members of the public to enable prompt investigation, arrest and prosecution of perpetrators of cybercrime and other related offences.
“The portal caters for complaints pertaining to cybercrimes. With this, victims/complainants can now report cases of cybercrime online, at any time and from any part of the world. The cases are promptly attended to by the Cybercrime Unit of the Force domiciled with the INTERPOL National Central Bureau (NCB), Force Headquarters, Abuja and the newly created Cybercrime Unit at the INTERPOL annex, Alagbon Close, Ikoyi, Lagos. The new portal will provide updates on achievements being recorded by the Nigeria Police and will, among other things, avail the citizens knowledge of basic cyber-related issues such as emerging cybercrime trends, the modus operandi of the cyber crooks and offer tips on how citizens could make themselves less vulnerable within the cyberspace. The Force urges potential users of the portal to ensure that only correct and accurate information, devoid of deliberate falsehood, misrepresentation and misinformation, are provided when filing their complaints.
Meanwhile, the Inspector General of Police, M. A. Adamu, reaffirms the commitment of the Nigeria Police Force in protecting the cyber space and bringing all cyber criminals to book. He reassures confidentiality of all reports and complaints made to the Police through the cyber portal.