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Police Arrest Six FUTA Students Over N5 Million Yahoo Deal(AllAfrica Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Six students suspected to be Internet fraudsters are presently in police net in Lagos. The police say the students from the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), allegedly designed a fake website of a foreign body, where unsuspecting Nigerians seeking foreign scholarships were swindled. Ngozi Isintume-Agu, a deputy superintendent of police, said the suspects successfully designed a fake website of OPEC Fund for International Development with OFID name and logo, where applicants in Nigeria were requested to pay N2,500 to be eligible for scholarships offered by the international body. According to Isintume-Agu, who is also the public relations officer, Police Special Fraud Unit, Ikoyi, Lagos, the attention of police detectives were drawn to the matter through a petition dated August 22, where the genuine OPEC Fund disclosed that its website has been faked where innocent Nigerian applicants have been defrauded. Checks by our correspondent revealed that the applicants were requested to pay N2,500, as application, fee into the following accounts: First Bank Account No: 2020874607 and Access Bank Account No: 0056941009 with the name OFID WSAS NG. More than 2,000 applicants responded and paid the money into these two accounts, which the police image-maker said amounted to some N5million. However, curious, one of the applicants, months later contacted OPEC Fund, through his facebook account and the body had to petition the Lagos SFU cyber crime section. Based on the petition, SFU police detectives moved into action and after some days tracked down one Falade Oluwapelumi Ayotunde. When drilled by the police, Ayotunde revealed five other members of the syndicate, who were accordingly tracked. Our correspondent gathered that Ayotunde is a 25-year-old 500-level student of estate management at the Federal University of Technology, Akure. The suspect confessed that he designed the fake website in June 2012 and also opened the two bank accounts for the site into which the applicants paid the money. The second suspect, Asaolu Victor (25), is an indigene of Ilesha in Osun State. A graduate of mining engineering from the same university confessed to police detectives that he was paid N80,000 to paste posters online. Emmanuel Awote Temitope (27), a 500-leval estate management student of the same university, stood as guarantor for the accounts and for his efforts, he got N70,000, even as he confessed that he knew from the first day that the whole project was a scam. Fajobi Olalekan (27) from Lagos State graduated as a mechanical engineer from the same university. Currently, the police say he is working with Dee Xecutor Concept in Lagos. Olalekan lived in the same lodge with Ayotunde, while in school and independent checks reveal that he was fully involved in the designing of a fake scholarship website known as EDIADS. This put him on a better pedestal, when the OPEC Fund website was to be designed, though he confessed that he was paid a meagre N32,000 for his efforts. Bola Latiri Onaopemipo (25), currently a handset dealer in Lagos, was designed the name and logo for the fake site. He got N12,000 for his efforts. The last suspect, Adebomi Oluwatosin, also a graduate of FUTA, and an employee of Delta State Polytechnic, Ozoro, where he is a programmer, confessed to the police that he was given N10,000 when the deal clicked. Efforts made by Saturday Independent to contact FUTA authorities for official comments on the issue proved abortive. When our correspondent logged into the www.futa.edu.ng, the official website of the university, there was no portion for contact, where the phone numbers and email address of the institution could be. Copyright Daily Independent. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). |