The Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission on Monday
released a statement addressing
the rise of identity theft in
Nigeria. Photos of a suspected
female fraudster on the run was also shared. Read below…
The much talked about ATM
fraudsters are not resting on the
oars. They are all over the place
laying siege to any susceptible
victim. These criminals go about fleecing unwary members of the
public with their ingenious, ever-
changing modes of operations.
The latest being the infamous
identity theft.

Before now, cloning and PIN harvesting through electronic
chips cleverly concealed in the
Automated Teller Machine (ATM),
was the universal mode. Over
time, the tricks and decoys to
entrap their victims keep changing and have assumed a
disturbing dimension.

The Ibadan Zonal Office of the
Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) is on the trail
of a suspected ATM fraudster, who goes by the name Akinade
Tofunmi. Her trade in stock is
identity theft. Her duty post is
any ATM Point and Point of Sales
(POS) machines across the
country. However, she does not ‘work’
during the official hours of the
week rather; she operates late in
the night when all bank
transactions had closed and
preferably over the weekend when her ‘prospective’ victims
might not be able to alert the
banks for any unauthorised
transaction. In her last operation, within twenty four
hours; this fraudster who
operates with the identity of
her victims succeeded to have
raked in about three million
(N3m) within 24 hours. Dateline was Friday, June 3rd,
2016, at about the close of
work. A woman simply identified
as Alhaja and her husband who
was waiting in the car wanted to
use an ATM somewhere in Ibadan, Oyo State, when
Tofunmi noticed that the woman
limps. Pretending to be polite
and cultured, she offered to
assist her with the transaction on
the ATM. Unaware of the intention behind the pious
approach, she gave the
fraudster her ATM card and
divulged her PIN. Smartly, the
fraudster quickly checked the
balance in the account which had one million, seven hundred
and forty nine thousand, twenty
six naira and seven kobo (N1,
749, 026. 07). After the intended
withdrawal of N20, 000:00, the
fraudster swapped the card and gave Alhaja a fake ATM card.
Oblivious of the swap, she left
with her husband.

Shortly before midnight, the
fraudster started the ‘harvest’ of
her booty. She withdrew one hundred and thirty thousand
naira. Having exceeded the daily
withdrawing limit for that day,
she waited for a few minutes to
the following day which was a
Saturday. Shortly after midnight, she made another rounds of
withdrawals to the tune of one
hundred and fifty thousand
naira which was also the daily
limit for that day. However,
Alhaja and her husband had no one to run or call that night to
save the situation when the
debit alerts start coming in
torrent.

In a desperate need of where
and how to empty the balance in the account, she went to a
night
club where she met a motorcycle
transporter, popularly known as
Okada whom she approached
for a help. Her decoy was that
she had enough money in her account but could not access it
having exceeded her daily
withdrawal limit. She showed the
bike man her balance and
pleaded with him to give her his
ATM card, account details and PIN for a quick teller transfer
from her (Alhaja’s) account to
the bike man’s account. With
that, she has been able to secure
some of Alhaja’s money in the
bike man’s account thereby stealing the identity of the
unsuspecting bike man.
At the early hours of that
Saturday morning, she asked the
bike man to take her to a hotel
with an intention to further steal the identity of the hotelier for
another movement of the
money. At the hotel reception
while paying for her
accommodation which was N10,
000 (Ten thousand naira) for one night, she deliberated
credited the hotel’s account with
one hundred and one thousand
naira (N101, 000) feigning a
mistake and demanded a refund
of ninety-one thousand naira (N91, 000) balance of an
overpayment. This was also
done with Alhaja’s ATM card
through the POS machine at the
Hotel.

To further conceal her identity, she provided fake personal
details in the hotel and gave the
hotel the bike man’s account
detail when the hotel
management requested for an
account to deposit the refund. All these happened on Saturday;
hence, Alhaja and her husband
are still in dilemma with no help
in sight to stop the transactions
in the account. By Sunday,
Alhaja’s money had moved to the fraudster both in cash and
through transfer to the bike man
account domicile in the same
bank.

All these while, the fraudster was
in possession of both Alhaja the first victim and the bike man, the
second victim’s ATM cards. Later
the following day, Monday, the
bike man could no longer reach
the fraudster on phone; he (the
bike man) then went to the bank to request for another ATM
card.

It was later discovered in the
bank that part of Alhaja’s money
was transferred to the bike
man’s account. He was arrested
by the bank and He’s now helping the EFCC operatives to
track down the fraudster.

Investigations have revealed
that this same fraudster had
stolen the identities of other
victims earlier and had absconded to, Ilorin, Kwara
State.

Instances of Tofunmi’s nefarious
activities have also been spotted
in other parts of the country
particularly Port Harcourt City. The Commission is hereby
seeking the cooperation and
support of public spirited
members of the society to please
help unveil the identity of this
fraudster. Her face, though with different disguises, is on display
for anyone who knows her to
please contact any of our offices
across the six geopolitical zones
and Abuja. She must be
apprehended, who knows the next victim?
Besides, it is imperative to
reiterate the need to be careful
with our ATM cards and

PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION
NUMBER (PIN). On no account should we divulge any
information about our account
details to anyone. The criminals,
ATM fraudsters are on the loose,
taking advantage of people’s
insensitivity and carelessness. Pictures show Akinade Tofunmi
as captured by CCTV Of the bank
and Hotel she operated from.

LALASTICLALA

copy and paste.

LALASTICLALA

So one sharp Sisi is busy doing this while my girl is still asking me for recharge card, abii? God dey!! I'm not saying that what the Sisi is doing is right oh.. But she try..