Alleged Crypto fraud: EFCC arrests 193 foreigners, 599 others

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has announced the arrest of 193 foreigners and 599 other suspects for offences bordering on cryptocurrency investment fraud and romance scam.

The EFCC Director of Public Affairs, Wilson Uwujaren, confirmed their arrest while briefing journalists at the commission’s office in Lagos on Monday.

Uwujaren said the suspects were arrested on Tuesday, December 10, 2024, in a sting operation at their hideout, a seven-storey building known as Big Leaf Building, on No.7, Oyin Jolayemi Street, Victoria Island, Lagos.

“The breakthrough followed actionable intelligence and months of surveillance and monitoring the activities of the syndicate.Among the foreigners arrested are 148 Chinese, 40 Filipinos, two Kharzartans, one Pakistani, one Indonesian,” he said.

“Investigation established that the foreign nationals use the facility at 7, Oyin Jolayemi Street, which could be mistaken for a corporate headquarters of a financial establishment to train their Nigerian accomplices on how to initiate romance and investment scams and also use the identitiesof Nigerians to perpetrate their criminal activities.

“All the floors are equipped with high-end desktop computers. On the 5th floor alone, investigators recovered 500 SIM cards of local telcos that were bought for criminal purposes.”

According to Uwujaren, their Nigerian accomplices were recruited by the foreign kingpins to prospect for victims online through phishing, targeting mostly Americans, Canadians, Mexicans, and several others from European countries.

He explained that they usually arm them with desktop computers and mobile devices and create fake profiles for them.

“The Nigerian accomplices are equally provided with logs that allow them access to foreign communication lines and victims, which they chat with on WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram,” he added.

“They are also assigned WhatsApp accounts linked to foreign telephone numbers, especially from Germany and Italy.

“Their jobs are to engage victims in romantic conversations and phantom business and investment discussions to trick them to shop on the purported online investment shopping platform called www.yooto.com. For those who show interest, activation fees for an account on the platform starts from $35USD.”

He said investigation revealed that the criterion for recruiting these young Nigerians is proficiency in the use of computers, especially typing skill.

He explained that those who passed the test are given desktop computers and mobile devices and then taken through a two-week induction on how to personate foreign females in romance scam chats and convince victims to invest in their employers’ Cryptocurrency investment scam.

“Once the Nigerians are able to win the confidence of would-be victims, the foreigners would take over the actual task of defrauding the victims and proceed to block their Nigerian accomplices from the network. This would then leave them in the dark about the transaction,” Uwujaren said.

“Surprisingly, the Nigerians do not know the owners of the ‘company’ they work for, as they neither get letters of appointments nor receive payment from a corporate account. Investigation revealed that they are paid either in cash or through an individual’s account.”

He added that further investigation is ongoing to establish the extent of the scam and the accomplices, including the likelihood of any collaboration with organized international fraud cells.

According to him, the commission is working closely with its foreign partners in this regard. Items recovered from the suspects include desktop computers, mobile phones, laptop computers, and cars.