With the rising wave of crime in cities and suburbs across the country and the need to ensure the safety of all residents, police authorities have begun plans to introduce a unit to fight digital crime.
Insider sources told our correspondent that the staggering amount of money involved yearly in digital crime actually compelled police egg heads to look inward and decide to rise to the challenges of the digital age crime.
If the anticipated new unit successfully pass the administrative test, it would surely enhance cooperation with banks and other law enforcement agencies to recover money and combat laundering
According to the source, “The Police Management Team [PMT] is trying to do this through a new anti-fraud coordination unit following the realisation that over 2,000 reports bearing on phone and email scams, coupled with other criminal deceptions, were received last year alone.”
Though Force spokesman, Chief Superintendent Moshood Jimoh, maintained that crime rate throughout the country, especially in the Federal Capital Territory, had dropped considerately, he said that rehabilitation, which is the ultimate goal of the criminal justice system, made a significant contribution as it only reinforced how crime management had worked when compared with other places.
Further checks revealed that of all the losses made by individuals, who reported cases bearing on email scams, the police did not make much progress in recovering the amount of money involved in such scams.
“If the anticipated new unit successfully pass the administrative test, it would surely enhance cooperation with banks and other law enforcement agencies to recover money and combat laundering,” he said.
An independent source very close to the office of the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, acknowledged the fact that though crime rate might have gone down in some places, crime of deception remained a daily occurrence. “The new unit will be responsible for strategy, intelligence, coordination, support and public education,” he said.
Also speaking with our correspondent on the desirability of the new police unit, an expert, Mr. Gbemisola Festus Akin, who works with an Abuja-based ICT company, Fago Communications, noted that the new unit might be faced with some challenges.
“It is a welcome idea but I have my personal reservations. In the first instance, there could be a touch of irony to the objective of cooperation with financial institutions, which compete with the police for the services of people with forensics or hi-tech anti-fraud expertise. These people are in no way constrained by government pay structures or relativities; these institutions can pay whatever it takes to recruit talent, after he or she has been trained at the expense of the taxpayer. The demand is such that some talents set up independent consultancies to government and the private sector,” he said.
Akin added that the PMT would, in a way, be doing the country proud as the new unit comes on board.
“I only hope that those to work at the unit would be properly resourced to compete on a level playing field with other security customers. I also expect that we pay more to combat a rapidly growing form of crime without jettisoning the need to educate the public as a key to the overall goal of the idea,” he said.
