The hunt for money-transfer scams worldwide this time round has seen up to 281 people arrested in 10 countries. Sadly, 167 out of the 281 arrested were from Nigeria. Does this mean that Nigeria is among the top fraudsters?
Also read: How To Do UBA Visa Card Verification
With many people being tricked into wiring money to bank accounts controlled by fraudsters, a lot has to be done in order to see such acts come to an end.
BBC reports more on this story…..
Police in 10 countries have arrested 281 people they suspect of carrying out large-scale money-transfer scams.
The FBI co-ordinated the raids over several months against groups of people suspected of stealing millions of pounds from companies and individuals.
The scam involves tricking victims into wiring money to bank accounts controlled by fraudsters.
Spoof email messages make the money-transfer requests appear to have come from bosses or other senior staff.
Identity check
Almost $3.7m (£3m) in cash had been seized during the raids, said the FBI. Evidence gathered from the law enforcement operation should lead to another $118m being seized, it added.
The global campaign, Operation Rewired, saw raids in the US, UK, Nigeria, Turkey, Ghana, France, Italy, Japan, Kenya and Malaysia over the past four months.
Of those arrested, 167, were from Nigeria.
Ibrahim Magu, who chairs Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, told the TodayNG news site the action was part of a larger effort against groups of suspected tech-savvy criminals called Yahoo boys.
As well as cash, Mr Magu said, the raids had also led to the seizure of “exotic cars, plots of land in choice areas in Lagos and a property in Abuja”.
The FBI urged anyone handling money transfer requests that arrived by email to take extra time to verify the identity of the sender and that the request was genuine.
The scam, which it calls Business Email Compromise (BEC), had led to losses of more than $26bn globally since 2016, the FBI’s Internet Complaint Crime Center said.
“Through Operation Rewired, we’re sending a clear message to the criminals who orchestrate these BEC schemes, We’ll keep coming after you, no matter where you are,'” said FBI director Christopher Wray.
Catalin Cimpanu wrote on the ZDNet technology news website: “BEC scams were once an outlier of the cyber-crime scene, but now it’s by far the most profitable category.”
Article source: Arrests in 10 countries over money-transfer scams
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