A group of fraudsters who stole more than N16 million using point-of-sale devices have been apprehended by the Nigeria Police’s National Cybercrime Centre.
This was disclosed in a statement released by the police spokesperson, Muyiwa Adejobi, on Tuesday night.
He claimed that in less than a month, the police unit, which was established to address cybercrime offenses, had made significant progress.
The arrest of a POS fraud network is one of those accomplishments, said the police spokesperson.
He explained that there had been “illegal access to a computer network and manipulation of a point of sale network to defraud the unsuspecting owner of the total sum of N16,149,195.00.”
Sanmi Ayodeji, 29, Felix Oluwaseun, 24, and Adeleye Oluwaseun, 32, are the suspects who were taken into custody.
Adejobi described the suspects’ method of operation, claiming that without their permission, the suspects registered on a POS platform called Tmoni Technologies Company using their bank verification numbers as well as that of their friends and family members.
They then opened legitimate wallet accounts with Tmoni, took advantage of the company’s network security flaws, and fraudulently moved $16.1 million from the Tmoni platform to a number of online accounts, from which they withdrew the money.
After the financial controller of the Tmoni platform officially complained, the suspects were eventually detained in Ibadan, Oyo State, by agents of the NPF National Cybercrime Centre.
The suspects were discovered to be in possession of multiple mobile phones, POS devices, SIM cards, ATM cards, and one Toyota Matrix automobile with registration number KUJ 548 CN, which they admittedly purchased using the profits of the crime, the source said.
The accused would be brought into court as quickly as possible, according to Adejobi.