The police in Edo State have arrested members of a three-man gang of fraudsters, who specialised in using a secret code to hack into bank accounts of customers and illegally transfer money from them, while pretending to be registering their GSM SIM cards.
Members of the gang arrested by the police include 20-year-old Theophilus Okoh; Louis Idodame, 20 and Lucky David, 19.
The leader of the gang, Okoh, who spoke with The Point in their detention cell at the State Police Command Headquarters, confessed that he, in collaboration with the other members of his group, committed the offence by using a secret code to transfer money from the customers’ bank accounts in the process of registering their sim cards.
“I was a vendor of Airtel network and I used to register customers SIM cards to company’s database.
So, in the process of registering the customers’ sim cards, I will secretly use a code to transfer money from the customer’s bank account to my own,” he told The Point. Asked how much he had made from his unsuspecting victims, Okoh said, “I made N210,000.”
The state Commissioner of Police, Haliru Gwandu, said that the gang members were part of the 27 suspected criminals already arrested by the police in the state. Gwandu noted that the state police command has declared its resolve to stem the tide of crime and criminalities in the state.
He restated the command’s preparedness and readiness to deal with suspected criminals and miscreants in the state.
I used to register customers SIM cards to company’s database. in the process, I will secretly use a code to transfer money from the customer’s bank account to my own
According to him, “The robust visibility policing and convoy patrol put in place in Benin City and other areas of the state is to checkmate armed robbery, car-snatching, cultism, thuggery, touting, kidnapping, cybercrimes, and all those undesirable elements like “bloggers.”
The police commissioner warned that those bent on causing mischief in the state would be dealt with decisively, adding that the 27 suspects were arrested in crime-related offences bearing on bank fraud, armed robbery and cultism.
“When I say bloggers, I mean those who indulge in fake information on the internet to blackmail some personalities or government of the day,” he said. He, therefore, warned criminal elements to leave the state because Edo “is not safe for them and their cohorts and they have no place to hide without being apprehended to face the wrath of the law.”
Gwandu further urged all the residents of the state to be security-conscious and to volunteer useful information on the activities of criminals, hideouts and their collaborators, assuring that every information provided to the police would be treated with “utmost confidentiality.”
