Nigerian Police dismantle cybercrime recruitment, mentoring hub

The Nigerian Police Form has arrested six suspects and dismantled a mentoring hub linked to cybercrime activities, including business email compromise, romance, and investment scams.

After receiving intelligence and investigating a group of individuals suspected of cybercrime, six individuals were arrested on September 13th, 2023, in the Dantata estate area.

As part of this operation the Police state that they dismantled a cybercrime recruitment and mentoring hub in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), as well as seized several digital devices believed to be used in criminal activities.

The authorities say that the threat actors confessed to their involvement in cybercrime activities, including identity theft, hacking and trading of hacked Facebook accounts, romance scams, computer-related forgery, and other computer-related fraud.

Inspector General of Police Ag. IGP Olukayode Egbetokun, NPM, Ph.D., requested that the public, family, friends, and religious groups condemn this activity and report suspicious online activity to the police to help combat this type of crime.

"In addition, the NPF wishes to urge landlords/landladies, facility owners, to expose any such cybercrime recruitment centre and mentoring hubs noticed in their areas or houses," reads a Twitter post by the Nigerian Police Force.

"We need to break the conspiracy of silence and expose the evil doers in our society."

In May 2022, the FBI revealed that BEC scams led to the theft of $43 billion based on complaints received between June 2016 and July 2019.

Earlier this year, the FTC warned that $1.3 billion was lost by 70,000 Americans to romance scams, and threat actors have stolen over $2 billion in 'pig butchering' cryptocurrency investment schemes in 2022.

All online users should be careful and suspicious of social engineering attacks, whether via email or social media, requesting that you provide sensitive information or send money.