The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ola Olukoyede, has raised the alarm that organised foreign fraud syndicates are establishing cells in Nigerian cities.
He also said the criminals are recruiting young Nigerians into serious organised cybercrimes, including cryptocurrency fraud.
This was contained in a statement by EFCC’s Head of Media and Publicity, Dele Oyewale, yesterday, which was disclosed by Olukoyede while receiving participants of the Executive Intelligence Management Course, EIMC 18 of the National Institute for Security Studies, led by the Director of Studies, Hyginus Ngele to the Commission.
“Another dimension that is not given attention is the discovery, recently, that organized foreign fraud syndicates are establishing cells in Nigerian cities and recruiting young Nigerians into serious organized cybercrimes, including cryptocurrency fraud,” he said.
Speaking further, he stated that by virtue of EFCC’s recent discovery “We are beginning to see the likeli- hood, the propensity that a lot of these people are into illegal importation of arms into the country using cryptocurrency as means of payment. And this is an area that must interest all of you.
“In the special operations we carried out in Lagos recently, we arrested 194 foreigners in the heart of Victoria Island. 194 of them, Chinese, Filipinos, Eastern Europeans, Tunisians, and the likes in one building at a time. You can imagine what these guys are doing. Some of them don’t even have valid visas, and most of the financial activities they carried out they did through cryptocurrency.
“Another thing we discovered is some of the foreigners arrested were ex-convicts in their countries. They escaped from their countries and found safe haven in Africa, not only Nigeria.”
We discovered that they are also developing cells in some other African countries by virtue of the investigation we are carrying out,” he said.(Guardian)
