By 
By Oluwatobi Opusunju
Cyber hackers and scammers are on the prowl of unsuspecting Nigerian businesses and individuals using false bank alerts to defraud their victims of millions of naira and dollars from bank accounts. The hackers, under false pretense will purchase certain goods or services worth millions of naira or dollars and request for the business or seller’s bank account, only to send a fake payment alert.
There are several online sites that can be used to send fake payment alerts. Be wary of any payment alerts. Take time to further clarify transaction payments with your bank before sealing any deal, particularly when the amount in question is huge.
Just recently, the Lagos State Police nabbed a 28-year-old suspected hacker who defrauded a Lagos car dealer of N28 million by making payment for a Porsche car using false bank alert.
According to the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Edgal Imohimi, the suspect who was paraded this week in Lagos was also capable of shutting down CCTV cameras and making them unworkable for 67 minutes using a particular software.
“On March 23, my office received a complaint that there exists a syndicate that goes to car shops to buy cars.
The syndicate would then configure a computer programme that would send a fake payment alert to the seller and by so doing, obtains a car under false pretenses.
“Such was the case of one Abidogun Adewale whose car shop played host to the leader of this syndicate who bought a Porsche car at a whopping price of N28 million.He, thereafter, requested for the seller’s bank account number and made it look like he had paid him via the fake alert to his phone using tunnel.com.The suspect drove the car away unknown to the seller that he had been scammed,” said Imohimi.
The police boss said the nabbed criminal has a good mastery of cyber environment. He creates a credit card through cyber ghost 12.
“When the credit card matures, it is then funded through a hacked Swiss account. Any transaction anybody is doing through the Swiss account, the suspect manipulates such and wire the fund to his contrived credit card.
“This is possible with the aid of cyber ghost 12 tunnel, a virtual private network),’’ said Imohimi adding that it has become urgent for banks to put more advance security framework in place to protect customers from cyber con artists.
