A 34-year-old graduate of International Relations and Management from the University of Lagos, Mr. Anthony (surname withheld), has been arrested by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for using the names of prominent people in the society for fraud.
The Head of Media and Publicity of the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, said in a statement on Tuesday that the fraudster was arrested for using the names of the wife of the Lagos State Governor, Abimbola Fashola; the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; the wife of the Minister of the FCT, Mrs. Aisha Bala-Mohammed; and the Director of Abuja Geographical Information System, Jamila Tangaza, to commit fraud.
Uwujaren said the suspected fraudster, now being detained at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja exploited the prominent names to swindle several unsuspecting Nigerians, who fell for his tricks.
Uwujaren explained that Anthony cloned the facebook accounts of Mrs. Fashola, Okonjo-Iweala, Aisha Bala-Mohammed, and the Director of AGIS and used them to lure and swindle unsuspecting victims.
The EFCC spokesman alleged that the suspect sent out messages with the cloned accounts of the prominent ladies and directed unsuspecting Nigerians, who tried to be friends with the Lagos State First Lady and the others to his personal assistant (who happened to be him) who demanded and collected money from some of them.
“In each of the instances, he devised clever baits to lure his victims. Once he successfully opened a facebook account with the false identity of Mrs Fashola, first lady of Lagos State. He began to send out messages. Soon, requests for friendship flooded his account.
“He exploited the frenzy by the unwary facebook crowd that wanted to be friends with a first lady, by directing some of them to meet with ‘her personal assistant’, who in turn demanded various sums of money from them in order to connect them with influential people in government and the society.” Uwujaren said.
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