- 40 Nigerian cyber crime gangs fingered
Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have launched investigations into the activities of an alleged international crime syndicate suspected to have stolen millions of dollars by intercepting and diverting bank transfers of companies around the world.
The syndicate is said to include groups of Nigerians whose annual takings from such cyber crime is estimated to be over N1billion annually.
The EFCC’s action followed a recent alarm raised by a United Statesbased cyber company, SecureWorks.
The cyber company had claimed that it had uncovered a group of 30 to 40 Nigerian cyber crime groups stealing about US$5million a year, often from industries that, “buy and sell large shipments, including chemical manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and heavy machinery.
“Cyber criminals are increasingly pretending to be executives and using fake email accounts to steal money from companies, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation warning of a dramatic rise in business email compromise scams.
“The US law enforcement agency reported in June that cyber criminals had tried to snatch more than $3 billion, an increase of 50 percent over 10 months”.
Speaking on the scam, a researcher at SecureWorks, James Bettke, had said, “The Nigerian criminal ring is more sophisticated than some email spoofing scams, which send emails claiming to be from a senior executive ordering wire transfers, in that they intercept an existing transaction.
“They [the victims] sincerely believe there is a real transaction going on, so they become completely confused.” He added, “Nothing seems out of place until the money does not turn up.”
Our correspondent further learnt that SecureWorks had equally informed law enforcement agencies, including the EFCC about the scam and attempted to contact companies involved.
The cyber security company, which went public this year, claimed to have identified the perpetrators of the crime, including their names, social media profiles and conversations between them, with details on how the business is run.“The group’s tactics are less sophisticated than those used to steal from the Swift global bank payments system, which has been in focus this year after $81 million was stolen from the Bangladesh Central Bank and ended up in casinos in the Philippines,” he said.
Bettke noted that the method was “digital cheque washing”, the online equivalent of the crime where cheques are stolen from a mailbox and washed in acetone to obscure the true payee and redirect the money to another bank account.
According to on-line sources,”The hackers find existing unpaid invoices, change the payee and reply to the buyer, who then sends money to the criminal’s account, not the seller”.
In one of such cases, SecureWorks said the group hijacked the email of an employee at an Indian chemical company.
“When a US chemical company sent a request to purchase $400,000 of chemicals, the hackers changed the rules in the employee’s email account so that all future emails from that company were directed to the hackers’ inbox. They changed the details on an invoice so the US Company paid them, not the Indian company,” the cyber company said.
Already, EFCC operatives are said to be taking the matter very seriously by going after the suspected perpetrators of the crime.
A source who pleaded anonymity said, “The anti-graft agency is liaising with banks and other financial institutions in the country to finally clip the wings of the cyber-criminals whose job it is to dent the image of the country”.
Our correspondent further learnt that the top management of the EFCC is already liaising with SecureWorks with a view to forming a synergy on the real identity of the international fraudsters.
“We want them to provide us with leads that could lead to the arrest of the suspects, which is why we are partnering any organisation that could make our jobs easier in this regard and we are already comparing notes,”a source at the Lagos office of the EFCC said.
Spokesperson of the anti-graft agency, Wilson Uwujaren, confirmed the development, saying, “EFCC has partnered many organisations around the world with similar aims and objectives. The war against money laundering and terrorism financing is a global thing”.
Wilson assured that the anti-graft agency parades a chain of trained operatives capable of fighting against any form of economic crime anywhere in the world.
“We have the resources to investigate and prosecute any criminal case under our purview anywhere in the world,”he said.
