TheNewsGuru

Tag: Scam

  • Scam Alert: NNPC disclaims fake 50th anniversary quiz contest

    Scam Alert: NNPC disclaims fake 50th anniversary quiz contest

    The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Tuesday disowned a fake quiz competition trending online which claimed to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

    The Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Malam Garba Muhammad, made this known in a statement.

    “In the purported quiz contest, unsuspecting participants are encouraged to answer four questions on their knowledge of the Corporation, with the eventual winner standing the chance of winning some cash reward of up to N30,000,” he alerted.

    According to Muhammad, the NNPC wishes to state categorically that it has nothing to do with the purported 50th anniversary quiz contest.

  • Ghanaian fraudster Tourey Ahmed Rufai extradited to the U.S.

    Ghanaian fraudster Tourey Ahmed Rufai extradited to the U.S.

    A Ghanaian fraudster, Tourey Ahmed Rufai who fled to Ghana after he was sentenced to four years in prison, was extradited to the United States on Friday to serve his sentence.

    The former Bronx resident was arrested in Ghana on 14 April, before he was extradited on 6 August.

    Audrey Strauss, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, along with other officials, announced Rufai’s extradition.

    Rufai, a/k/a “Joe Thompson,” a/k/a “Joe Terry,” a/k/a “Rufai A Tourey,” a/k/a “Ahmed Rufai Tourey,” was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote on 12 April, 2019.

    It was in connection with his participation in a fraud scheme based in Ghana involving the theft of over $10 million through business email compromises and romance scams.

    The gang targeted elderly victims from at least 2014 through 2018.

    According to court filings in Manhattan Federal Court:Between 2014 and 2018, RUFAI, was a member of a criminal enterprise, based in Ghana that was involved in defrauding more than 100 American businesses and individuals of more than $10 million through business email compromises and romance scams.

    RUFAI and his co-conspirators received or otherwise directed the receipt of millions of dollars in fraud proceeds from victims of the Enterprise in bank accounts that they controlled in the Bronx, New York.

    Some of these bank accounts were opened using fake names, stolen identities, or shell companies in order to avoid detection and hide the true identities of the members of the Enterprise controlling those accounts.

    Once the defendants received the fraud proceeds in bank accounts under their control, the defendants withdrew, transported, and laundered those fraud proceeds to other members of the Enterprise, including those located in Ghana.

    RUFAI, 33, was released on bail shortly after his arrest on January 9, 2018, on conditions including a $150,000 bond co-signed by three individuals, surrender of all travel documents, and home detention with electronic monitoring through an ankle bracelet.

    At his trial, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud on January 9, 2019.

    In addition to a prison term of four years, he was also on 12 April, 2019 sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $109,868.61 and pay restitution of $320,449.97 to victims.

    The court ordered him to self-surrender to prison on May 24, 2019.

    Then, on May 12, 2019, 12 days prior to his surrender date, U.S. Pretrial Services learned that the defendant’s ankle bracelet had been removed and that the defendant had fled.

    A bench warrant was thereafter issued for the defendant’s arrest.

    On April 14, 2021, after the defendant’s bond was forfeited, the defendant was arrested in Ghana pending his extradition to the United States to serve his sentence.

    Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said: “When a defendant released on bail like Tourey Ahmed Rufai cuts his ankle bracelet and flees the country, it is an affront to the victims of his crimes and the Court.

    “Thanks to the extraordinary work of the FBI, IRS-CI, and our law enforcement partners both in the United States and in Ghana, this fugitive was apprehended in Ghana and has been returned to the United States to serve his four-year sentence.”

    FBI Acting Assistant Director Jacqueline Maguire said: “Justice will now rightfully be delivered – both to Mr. Rufai as he serves his prison sentence, and to the innocent victims from whom he stole millions of dollars.

    Ms. Strauss praised the outstanding investigative work of the FBI and IRS-CI in locating RUFAI in Ghana so that he could be arrested by Ghanaian law enforcement.

    Ms. Strauss also thanked the FBI Legal Attaché in Accra, Ghana, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs of the Department’s Criminal Division, the U.S. Marshals Service.

    He also thanked Ghana’s Economic and Organised Crime Office, Interpol – Ghana Police Service’s Criminal Investigative Division, Ghana National Security, and the Ministry of Justice & Attorney General’s Office of Ghana, for their assistance in the extradition of RUFAI to the United States.

    The prosecution of this case is being handled by the Office’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit. Assistant United States Attorney Sagar K. Ravi is in charge of the prosecution.

  • Nigeria’s Chukwudi Opara busted in India over N9.4m scam

    Nigeria’s Chukwudi Opara busted in India over N9.4m scam

    A suspected Nigerian scammer, Henry Chukwudi Opara, has been arrested in India over alleged Rs 18.50 lakh (₦9,397,082.50) gift scam.

    He was arrested by the Rachakonda Cybercrime Police in Hyderabad, India.

    Opara was said to have come to India on medical visa for surgery after which he married a Karnataka lady and later joined as a part-time football coach in New Delhi.

    According to the police, Opara introduced his friends to another Nigerian national, Cheema Frank and another Indian friend, Mughashe Yeptho, who committed online gift, job fraud, loan fraud, among others.

    Opara was said to have joined his friends to make easy money through online gift fraud and live lavishly, for which they engaged some bank account holders.

    The police explained that in the month of December 2020, they cheated a person from Hyderabad on the pretext of sending gift and currency from the UK and fabricated a story that the parcel was caught by customs at Delhi Airport and that to get it released, they made the victim to transfer money into various bank accounts in the name of various charges provided by one auto driver, Suraj of Noida.

    Suraj also helped the accused in withdrawing the looted amounts from the accounts provided and handing it over to them, for which they paid R.50,000 as commissions.

    During the course of investigation, the investigating police officer collected all the technical evidences and after analysing the data and other credible information, the accused were arrested on Saturday and were produced in court for judicial custody.

  • TRENDING VIDEO: ‘Nigeria is a scam, needs new constitution’ – Pastor Paul Adefarasin

    TRENDING VIDEO: ‘Nigeria is a scam, needs new constitution’ – Pastor Paul Adefarasin

    Pastor Paul Adefarasin, founder of House on the Rock has said Nigeria is a scam and that the next administration must not be allowed to access power without a brand new constitution.

    Adefarasin, in a trending video said the faulty nature of the Nigerian constitution had made the whole thing a scam as the 1999 document was foisted on Nigerians by a few soldiers and their surrogates.

    He said anything short of a brand new constitution for Nigeria in the next administration is simply a fraud.

    “God will give us what we need to do what needs to be done, if we perish let us perish, millions will rise in our place. Otherwise your grand children will not have a future in this land and only people who are genuinely rooted in Christ will be able to deliver God’s genuine purpose for this nation.

    “Look at the resilience of Nigerians around the world, they excelled, the problem is not Nigerians, it is Nigeria and its constitution. The document upon which we were formed, it was a few soldiers who put it together and their surrogates and that is what is probably holding us together; the foundation is that document and if that foundation is faulty, what can the righteous do? We have got to go back to the foundation.

    “The next administration must not access power until we have a veritable constitution that is truly the document of we the people, anything else is a fraud, Nigeria is a scam and it is perpetuating itself too long,” he said.

    Watch Video:

  • Beware of this new loan recovery scam

    Beware of this new loan recovery scam

    A Criminologist at the University of Ibadan, Dr Oludayo Tade, has alerted the public on a new loan recovery scam reportedly being used in defrauding Nigerians.

    Tade raised the alarm in a statement entitled: “Loan Recovery Scam: A New Strategy for Fraud”, issued on Sunday in Ibadan.

    According to him, text messages are being sent to some people from a fictitious bank, claiming that they have been named as guarantors for certain loans purportedly taken by others.

    ”The story will then be that the guarantor must ensure that the loan procurer pays back or a legal case will be instituted against him/her,” he explained.

    The criminologist noted that such messages were being crafted in such a way that the recipients would be put under pressure to call the senders who would eventually dupe them.

    He also noted that the fraud messages were usually composed to threaten the receivers that the police would be involved in the matter, with a view to compelling them to call the senders.

    Tade advised Nigerians, who had received such messages, to simply ignore them since they did not stand as guarantors for any loan to anyone.

    He also urged them to simply ignore or delete such messages or report to the police in order to move against the fraud syndicate.

    “Do not panic to the extent of calling them. If you are worried, inform the police. Do not allow fraudsters to play a fast one on you by mounting unnecessary pressure,” the don said.

  • Scam alert: GTBank customers in Abuja raise alarm over hacked account

    Scam alert: GTBank customers in Abuja raise alarm over hacked account

    The Kubwa branch of the Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) in Abuja was on Friday stormed by customers, who complained that their bank accounts were hacked.

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports that most of the victims, who were mainly youths, complained of how their money allegedly grew wings and vanished from their accounts.

    A victim of the scam who gave her name as Miss Martha Dauda narrated her ordeal to TNG.

    “I got here to pay my school fees and surprisingly after filling the form, the cashier simply told me that I only have N11,000.00 in my account instead of N61,000.00,” she narrated.

    The worried GTBank customer, further stated, “I was alarmed because it wasn’t too long ago this bank made me to upgrade my account and insisted I provide NIN details.

    “I applied for NIN number and my account that was blocked was reactivated and now I want to pay my school fees only to discover that my life savings has been stolen.

    “I asked the Customer Care person in GTB and he simply told me one Opeyemi must have cleaned out my account.

    “I don’t know any Opeyemi, this is my hard earned money that I have saved after gaining admission into National Open University of Nigeria”.

    23-year-old Dauda narrated her experience in tears and confirmed to TNG that several other students and other GTBank customers equally wanted their accounts closed because their accounts were hacked.

    She explained: “we were more than five that had our accounts hacked and we were simply asked to go home”.

    Efforts to get the Kubwa GTBank branch manager to address the matter proved abortive at the time of filing this report.

  • Why I surrendered: Nigerian wanted by FBI for $6m Internet scam opens up

    Why I surrendered: Nigerian wanted by FBI for $6m Internet scam opens up

    Felix Osilama Okpoh, an alleged fraudster on the watch list of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has opened up on why he surrendered himself to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports Okpoh, who was on August 21, 2019, indicted in the United States District Court, District of Nebraska on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, surrendered to the EFCC on September 18, 2020.

    According to the EFCC, the suspect turned himself in at the Lagos Zonal Office of the Commission in company of his parents, Col. Garuba Okpoh (retd.) and Chief (Mrs.) Justina Okpoh.

    During interrogation, Okpoh said he made the move to surrender himself to the Commission out of respect he had for his parents and his resolve to be morally upright.

    Okpoh, alongside Richard Izuchukwu Uzuh, Alex Afolabi Ogunshakin, Abiola Ayorinde Kayode and Nnamdi Orson Benson, had been declared wanted by the FBI sometime in 2019 for their alleged involvement in a Business Email Compromise (BEC) scheme that defrauded over 70 businesses in the United States of over $6,000,000.00.

    The suspect allegedly provided over 40 bank accounts to his conspirators, which were used to receive fraudulent wire transfers from their victims totaling over $1,000, 000USD.

    The EFCC had since commenced investigation into his involvement in the $6,000,000.00 Internet fraud.

  • Scam: Abuja ‘Yahoo boys’ relocate to rural areas

    Scam: Abuja ‘Yahoo boys’ relocate to rural areas

    By Emman Ovuakporie

    Apparently sensing that a gold fish has no hiding place, scammers otherwise known as ‘Yahoo Yahoo’ boys in Nigeria are fast relocating to rural areas of Abuja to beat security operatives.

    TheNewsGuru.com, TNG reports that living in mega estates in Abuja has become the albatross of the scammers as they now relocate to the hinterlands.

    A probe into this development by TNG revealed that mega estates in Galadimawa, Gwarimpa, Maitama and Asokoro are no longer safe havens for them because of their flashy lifestyles.

    According to a source privy to this development, the scammers who are mainly University graduates, school dropouts now live in sattelite towns and outskirts of FCT.

    He said “the heat is too much in the town these days and police men always empty them once they are caught.

    “You know they operate in small small groups of three to four in one flat all knowing the codes to use once an alarm is raised.

    “They now live in places like Dutse inside oh, Bwari, Gwagwalada, some even moved to secluded places in Suleija in Niger State and Kaduna road.

    “But their biggest challenge is the inability to lie low because they all have same trade signals.

    “Their generators operate 24hours non-stop and once neighbours notice this signal tongues start wagging the next thing they will be reported.

    “I live in Kaduna road, some moved into our neighborhood and within one week they were all arrested, their generators, laptops were carted away by security operatives.

    “The operatives left their girlfriends behind but within one week they were released and their properties released.

    “So as you can see you can’t stop this young men because of the culture of settlement,’ he added.

  • NCC alerts Nigerians to phishing scams, e-Frauds

    NCC alerts Nigerians to phishing scams, e-Frauds

    The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has alerted Nigerians on the increasing incidents of fraud across various platforms, especially social media networks, urging them to protect their accounts against such frauds.

    NCC Director, Public Affairs, Dr Ikechukwu Adinde, said this in a statement on Thursday in Abuja.

    He said that the warning was in line with functions and objectives of the commission under the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA) 2003, which was to promote and protect the interests of telecom consumers.

    Adinde advised telecom consumers using social media platforms to be alert and wary of the wiles of fraudsters and other unscrupulous persons, in order not to fall victims of their antics.

    He explained that the latest scams usually take the form of vishing, which included fraudulent phone calls from people who may claim to be calling on behalf of a known and credible organisation.

    He said that the intention of the fraudsters was to gain access to the target’s personal social media account or other identity resources to perpetrate fraud.

    He, however, explained that vishing was a form of phishing, which was punishable under Section 32 of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention etc) Act of 2015.

    “These increasingly popular incidents typically start with a phone call from fraudsters requesting the call receiver to perform a certain task for the caller, which will enable the caller, usually part of a wider network of syndicates to swiftly takeover the social media account of an individual or group.

    “Consequently, the Commission wishes to inform the general public that such calls and antics, are initiated and carried out by unscrupulous persons, usually with the intent to defraud unsuspecting citizens and or commit other heinous crimes.

    “The Commission has observed that most times, when a receiver of such calls acts as the caller directs, the Facebook or other social media accounts targeted by the caller would be taken over by such persons, who may then proceed as impostors, soliciting funds from and/or enticing friends of their victims into fraudulent business transactions in order to swindle them,” he said.

    Adinde noted that to illustrate the insidious dimension of this development, a recording of an attempt by a person to extract information was made available to the Commission by a telecom consumer.

    According to him, the Commission considers it necessary to post the recording online to educate the general public on how fraudsters play tricks on people to defraud them.

    “Kindly visit the Commission’s Twitter Handles @ngcomcommission or @consumersncc to listen to the tape and other updates in this regard.

    “The Commission hereby also assures telecom consumers that all the numbers reportedly used to perpetuate these crimes are being investigated and thereafter, appropriate actions will be taken in that regard as prescribed by relevant laws,” he said.

    He urged telecom consumers to ensure that they put in place necessary security measures to protect their online activities, as well as remain alert to the prowling fraudsters on various platforms on the Internet.

    “It is important that telecom consumers do not give out any information about their accounts or other online transaction details to unknown persons who pose as representatives of known organisations such as Pension Administrators, Bankers, Insurers, Mobile Money Service Providers, Telecom Services Providers, Social Media Accounts, Group Administrators, etc.

    “Telecoms Consumers should also be less revealing about their personal lives and details on online platforms in order not to give fraudulent persons the opportunity to target them for scams.

    “In the wake of increased internet usage and other electronic communications, the Commission also wishes to warn telecom consumers and the general public of the possibility of an upsurge in cybercrimes, including but not limited to vishing (Voice Phishing) and smishing (SMS Phishing).

    “In order to ensure that telecom networks are not used to perpetrate crimes, the Commission appeals to all telecom consumers to forward complaints on suspected fraudulent calls to the Commission through our email at consumerportal@ncc.gov.ng,” he said.

  • WARNING! This WhatsApp feature could leave you vulnerable to all manner of scams

    A bug-bounty hunter known as Athul Jayaram has uncovered how using a WhatsApp feature could leave you vulnerable to all manner of scams and cyber attacks.

    The WhatsApp feature known as click to chat allows anyone to click on a WhatsApp-owned programmatic “wa.me” domain, which takes them directly to WhatsApp to chat with you.

    The domain stores click to chat metadata in a URL string. For instance, if you click on this link https://wa.me/2348052317264, it will take you to WhatsApp to chat with me.

    But, that is not the issue. The issue is that your mobile number is visible in plain text in this URL, and anyone who gets hold of the URL can know your mobile number. Plus, Google is indexing the phone, meaning it’s visible in Search.

    Messaging platform WhatsApp is renowned for its high data privacy standards, offering end-to-end encryption to all users. However, this latest discovery suggests personal data may not be as private as users might like to think.

    Scouring the domain via Google searches, Jayaram reportedly uncovered 300,000 WhatsApp numbers made public via this mechanism.

    “As individual phone numbers are leaked, an attacker can message them, call them, sell their phone numbers to marketers, spammers and scammers,” he stated.

    However, when contacted, WhatsApp dismissed the vulnerability on the grounds that users have full oversight of the information attached to their profile that is made available to the public.

    A WhatsApp spokesperson was quoted to have said the vulnerability “merely contained a search engine index of URLs that WhatsApp users chose to make public. All WhatsApp users, including businesses, can block unwanted messages with the tap of a button”.

    Meanwhile, the bug-bounty hunter believes that WhatsApp should take the disclosure more seriously, due to the scope of attacks the issue could facilitate.

    “Today, your mobile number is linked to your Bitcoin wallets, Adhaar, bank accounts, UPI, credit cards…[allowing] an attacker to perform SIM card swapping and cloning attacks is another possibility,” he said.