By Ifeoma Ikem
Operatives of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) last week botched the transfer of N25 million from a locally based bank account and a $220,000 from an international account with the arrest of 7 man fraud syndicate based in Lagos.
The arrest by the Decoy Team of RRS few days ago, was based on the intelligence information received on the activities of fraud syndicate based in Lagos ,led by one Osita Nwafor, alias Ossy.
A 45 years old Nwafor, was picked up in his hideout by the Decoy Team after a technical analysis of the details of the gang and its activities. His arrest facilitated the arrest of six other members of the gang in different parts of the state metropolis.
Other members of the gang arrested by the police include; Nwogu Joseph Chika (36), Anthony Odama (43), Ikechukwu Nkem (32), James Okonkwo (51), Adedio Paulinus (29) and Ogundepo Olufemi (51).
The prompt arrest of the gang first voided a fraudulent transaction of N3 million that had been perfected by the syndicate through a cloned SIM card.
Police investigation revealed that the gang members were recruited by Nwafor sometime in 2019 and they work independently .
According to Nwafor, the coordinator of the group said he brought everyone together as a team which each member of the group has it own speciality . We source for deceased person account local and internationally everyone of us has it own role to play.
“Once I have done my own part of the deal (sourcing for SIMs and accounts numbers through which the group perpetrates its fraud), I push it to whoever among the member that is available to play the next role and that is how we treat our deal”.
“Apart from this, each member of the gang also has his own splinter group. Whenever they have personal jobs, they also handle on their own”, he added.
The suspects confessed to have an insider that work with banks locally and internationally.
Nwafor added “Chike (Nwogu) sources for foreign and local accounts of money lodgments. I don’t know anything about how he does that, I simply hand over to Chike. He has his connections and they work on percentage.
Once they agree on the percentage, when the money comes, everybody gets his own cuts”.
It also gathered that the fraudsters carry scouts for obituaries of big personality and use the bank insider to determine the deceased account balance, clone their SIM cards for online transfer.
It was learnt that one of the bank insiders was arrested in Lagos while another one based in Benin who is on the run immediately he discovered other member of his gang has been busted
Nwafor disclosed that Nwogu was working on the transfer of $220,000 fresh transaction from a foreign bank (bank name, account holder and parties withheld) before he was arrested.
Another member of the syndicate, Femi Ogundepo, revealed on how he work on a fraudulent transaction of N25 million from an old generation bank with an insider connivance (details of the deal withheld).
James Okonkwo, a close ally of Nwafor, the gang coordinator, it was disclosed allegedly cornered N8 million fraudulent proceed of the gang shortly before his arrest.
It was also learnt that it was the cause of a serious dispute between Nwafor and Okonkwo, who just came back from the village.
All the suspects have been transferred to the SARS for further investigations and prosecution.