MTN Employees & Bankers Who Defrauded Subscribers Of N150M Arrested

July 11, 2017 – MTN Employees & Bankers Who Defrauded Subscribers Of N150Million Arrested In Lagos, Oyo & Kwara States

Lagos Police Special Fraud Unit Operatives in Ikoyi have arrested two employees who claimed to be staff of telecommunications giant, MTN, three bankers and six others for allegedly fleecing subscribers of over N150 million.

Chukwunonso Ifeanyi (30) and Okpetu John (29), who said they were MTN employees, were paraded alongside the bankers- Oyelade Shola (32), Osuolale Hammid (40) and Akeem Adesina (33) by the spokesman for the SFU, Lawal Audu, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP).

Others were an ICT specialist, Salako Abdulsalam (30), a Pastor, James Idagu (56), Sarumi Abubakar, Ismaeel Salami (49), Akinola Oghuan (34) and Sunday Okeke (33).

The suspects were arrested in Lagos, Oyo and Kwara States, with several Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cards belonging to unsuspecting Nigerians, whose accounts were used to divert money belonging to those they fleeced.

According to the police, the suspects belonged to a syndicate that specialised in defrauding bank customers, who do not do Internet banking.

It was gathered that while the bankers supplied the details of customers with funded accounts to the gang, the alleged MTN workers ensured that the victims’ mobile numbers, as well as those of people they had their ATMs were swapped for the duration of the crime.

According to Audu, blocking the numbers enabled the syndicate to fleece their victims, diverted the money into accounts they had ATM cards/pin and hurriedly withdrew them.

He said: “The suspects transferred the money siphoned into about 40 other accounts with ATM in different banks. They carried out their operations at weekends and public holidays to avoid being detected by the bank monitoring mechanisms or the owners of targeted funded accounts.

“The effort of the police team eventually paid off when the same group was holding their final meeting at Domino Pizza eatery along Bode Thomas Street, Surulere, on plan to unleash another monumental fraud on unsuspecting customers.

“Their plan was to defraud another new generation bank between May 26 and 29. Detectives stormed the venue during which one of the major kingpin claimed to be Alhaji Ismaeel Salami and four members of the syndicate were arrested.”

However, MTN has distanced itself from the suspects, saying they are not staff of the mobile service provider.