The Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission said it had arrested almost 800 people in Nigeria, all over the country, for crypto romance scams.
Ola Olukoyede announced last week that 792 people were arrested for allegedly being involved in cryptocurrency frauds, romance scams, and other types of investment fraud.
As part of an espionage operation, the arrests were made on Tuesday in a purported criminal den in a seven story building “which could be mistaken for a corporate headquarters of a financial establishment,” “He said”
The EFCC and suspects are yet to be charged, but the EFCC does not know how much the operation is believed to have stolen from victims.
The building was built with a lot of care, he said. “high-end desktop computers,” Agents recovered and added “500 SIM cards on the fifth floor alone.”
Investigators have reported that investigators found many of the scammers had foreign numbers assigned to them, mainly German and Italian.
“Their Nigerian accomplices were recruited by the foreign kingpins to prospect for victims online through phishing, targeting mostly Americans, Canadians, Mexicans, and several others from European countries,” Olukoyede was quoted in a press release.
Computers and mobile phones were provided to the employees of this fraud, who then used them. “a two-week induction on how to impersonate foreign females in romance scam chats and convince victims to invest in their employers' cryptocurrency investment scam.”
Once the Nigerians had a victim, they would then hand over the operations to the foreign managers. “block their Nigerian accomplices from the network.”
Many people who were arrested are foreigners. Of the 148 people arrested, there are 40 Filipinos (Chinese), two Kharzartans (2 Kharzartans), one Pakistani, and one Indonesian. According to reports, the foreigners were involved in training Nigerians how they could initiate investment and romance scams.
“Foreigners are taking advantage of our nation's unfortunate reputation as a haven of frauds to establish a foothold here to disguise their atrocious criminal enterprises,” Olukoyede said. “But, as this operation has shown, there will be no hiding places for criminals in Nigeria.”
It follows an announcement from Asia. Hong Kong police discovered a scam that involved a deepfake love story. The fraudsters defrauded victims of about $46 million by using fraudulent cryptocurrency investments.
Stacy Elliott edited this article.