Hundreds arrested in joint US-Nigeria crackdown on cyber scams
Lagos, Nigeria - Nigerian and US authorities said on Tuesday that nearly 300 people had been arrested in a months-long global crackdown on online scams to hijack wire transfers from companies and individuals.
‘Operation reWired’ broke up multiple groups, many party of transnational criminal gangs, running the so-called business email compromise (BEC) schemes by which they steal money being used in payments.
The schemes, with the US Justice Department said originated in Nigeria, have spread worldwide and led to some US$1.3bn in losses reported worldwide in
2018, double the previous year.
A ‘sweep’ operation from May through to September, with Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), ‘ focused on dismantling the most significant cyber criminal enterprises’, FBI legal attache Ahamdi Uche told a joint press conference in Lagos.
The operation has led to 167 people arrested in Nigeria, 74 in the United States, many of them Nigerian nationals, 18 in Turkey and 15 in Ghana.
Adding other arrests in France, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Britain and Kenya, a total of 281 people have been arrested and US$3.7mn seized in Operation reWired, the Justice Department said. Christopher Wray
‘Yahoo Yahoo boys’
‘Our efforts in coordinating the EFCC/FBI joint operations in Nigeria recorded tremendous successes’ against ‘the infamous Yahoo Yahoo boys’, a nickname given to Nigerian Yahoo mail fraudsters, said the EFCC’s director of information, Mohammed Abba. “We have also recovered from the arrested fraudsters the sum of US$169,850 as well as the sum of 92mn naira (€230,000),” Abba said.
“Cooperation is the backbone to effective law enforcement; without it, we aren’t as strong or as agile as we need to be,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.
“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.”
Africa's most populous country is saddled with an infamous reputation for online fraud.
Numerous figures associated with the criminal activity are often lauded in popular culture and enjoy close ties with politicians.
Nigerian authorities in May arrested a popular local musician known as Naira Marley - controversial for praising Internet fraudsters in his songs.
A spokesperson for Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said ‘the government would not stand in the way of the justice system’, and that ordinary Nigerians ‘ should not be tagged ‘fraudulent people’ for the misdeeds of a few’.
Business email compromise fraud involves numerous variants of scams.
In some, the perpetrator poses online and in emails as an official of a company or their international client and direct other employees to initiate money transfers or payments to the criminal’s account.
In others, they hijack an employee’s email to achieve the same end.
Through Operation reWired, we’re sending a clear message to the criminals who orchestrate these schemes