In a bid to curb the menace of internet fraud in the country, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arrested 13 suspected internet fraudsters.
Popularly called Yahoo Boys, the suspects were reportedly picked up in Lagos and Ogun States on December 16 following intelligence report on their activities.
They were nabbed for alleged conspiracy, possession of fraudulent documents and obtaining money under false pretence.
The arrested suspects are: Badejo Tobi; Abiola Dimeji; Anthony Godwin; Osoba Adeboye; Adeleken Abiodun and Awokoya Oriyomi Yusuf.
Others are: Oyatayo Ismail; Coffie Meschark; Sylvester Amaddin; Olawale Farouk; Adeniran Tolani; Taiwo Michael and OyekanmiAyodeji.
The suspects allegedly bought houses and exotic cars without any known source of income.
In a Thursday statement, the commission said: “The suspects allegedly confessed to being involved in phishing, love scam, forgery, spoofing and business email compromise, among other offences.
“Phishing is an attempt to obtain sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details (and money), often for malicious reasons, by disguising as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
“Spoofing, on the other hand, is a type of scam where an intruder attempts to gain unauthorized access to a user’s system or information by pretending to be the user.
“Some of the suspects, who live flamboyantly without any known sources of income, were said to have bought houses and exotic cars from the proceeds of their criminal activities.
“They were allegedly found to be in possession of forged contract papers of multinational oil and gas companies, banks’ instruments and forged data page of international passports of foreign nationals, among other documents.
“Other items recovered from the suspects included laptops, flash drives, modems, one Range Rover SUV, one Toyota Highlander, two Toyota Corolla and one Toyota Camry.
The suspects will soon be charged to court as soon as investigations are concluded.”