In Just 3 Minutes, Fraudsters Stole N5 Billion From Government Account

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is investigating a case of electronic fraud involving an unnamed state government in Nigeria which reportedly lost over N5 billion in three minutes. The Nig Comm Week reports. According the EFCC, five banks were involved in the case in which 250 bank accounts were used by the yet to be unidentified cyber thieves to defraud the state government.

Mr. Olaolu‎ Adgbeti, director of Operations, EFCC, said that processes used in the fraud include: POS, NIP, ATM, cash withdrawal, fund transfers and NEFT.

Adgbeti, who was represented by Iliyasu Kwarbai,‎ head of Lagos zone at the 5th annual Payment Systems & Fraud Conference 2014 added that  "since ‎the adoption of the ePayment system in Nigeria, the Commission is inundated with complaints related to electronic payments frauds. These compliments come from the financial institutions. Current fraud trends that is reported and Ben investigated include: Phishing and spoofing activities targeting local bank customers; Cloning of business websites e.g. banks and merchants; fraudulent online purchases made with fake foreign financial institutions and stolen credit card information.

"Online investment scams targeting local victims who divulge all their confidential information; deployment of malicious programs, mostly key stroke loggers, on target systems. Millions of naira are moved using electronic transfers.

"We are currently investigating a case in a particular case where funds were moved electronically. On the case of investigating the crime, although we are still investigating, but we found that the crime was done between 4:28pm and 4:31pm same day.

"‎On that day, five banks were involved in the case where 250 bank accounts were used by the yet unidentified cyber criminals. We are making headways.

Agbeti,‎ added that stages EFCC is following to track the crime processes include, "read and digest the  petition and map out plan for action. Invite the complainant to give insight into natter by substantiating the allegations"; among other processes before arriving at legal advice for possible prosecution of those found culpable.

He hinted that investigation and prosecution of electronic fraud is made more arduous for the issues like cooperation with the industry in observations of due diligence; current information sharing process by LEAS with financial institutions, ISPs‎ and Telecommunications operators is slow.

The Director also decried that cyber security awareness in the country is still very poor. "Example-most high level government functionaries still use unsecured channels and free e-mail services for official communication and internet related transactions," he said.

He added that the risk of fraud being conducted via Internet banking is high and increasing, adding that vulnerabilities are known as reduction measures can be put in place.