‘My father warned me not to get involved in cyber crime’

Chukwuemeka Egbemude, one of the four suspects arrested by the operatives of Rapid Response Squad of the Lagos State (RRS) Police Command for tricking expensive phone sellers to isolated locations and robbing them afterwards, has disclosed that his father had warned him not to use his house as a base for Internet crime.

Egbemude, 22, a 200-level drop-out of North American University, Cotonu, Benin Republic, was arrested last Wednesday in company of three other accomplices, who were fingered in the shooting of a police officer, who attempted to arrest them in one of their botched robbery operations.

The gang leader, Wilfred Ehis, a Chemical Engineering graduate of University of Benin, Benin City, had in his confessional statement to police, stated that his task as the leader of the group, was to source for expensive phone sellers on online platforms, pose as a lawyer, order for expensive phones and accessories before waylaying the delivery man and robbing him of the consignment at a designated location.

Egbemude confessed that all he did since dropping out of school was to scout the internet for people to defraud before forwarding the information to Ehis, who would organize how the operation will be carried out.

He added that he had been lodging in several hotels with Ehis around the LASU-Igando area because his father barred him and his elder brother from using his residence as centre for online fraud.

“I dropped out of school not because I wasn’t brilliant but because of my inability to pay my school fees. And since I returned to Nigeria, I started online fraud and picking up items for online fraudsters in and out of Nigeria. The first picking job was for myself in 2016. Later, I did another job for a “yahoo boy,” which fetched me $400. I have been into online fraud before I entered school in 2011.

“I also help “yahoo boys” to pick money, expensive wristwatches and rings. I go to the bank to pick up the money for them and I get my 10 or 15 per cent commission on every transaction. I have helped more than 50 boys to do such transactions,” he said.

The suspect, along with the gang leader, Wilfred Ehis and two others, Bright Eloho, 24 and Olanrewaju Kamilu, 33 have been transferred to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, Ikeja, Lagos for further investigations.