Three students of Ambrose Ali University (AAU), Ekpoma and Auchi Polytechnic both in Edo State and a 21-year-old man have been arrested by the police for alleged impersonation of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) and swindling of social media users.
Proposer Oricha, 19, of Business Administration Department, 21-year-old Samuel Taye, 400 level, Ordinary National Diploma (OND) Electrical Engineering student, Shaka Sumaila and Sunday Aliyu were arrested by operatives of the Inspector-General of Police’ (IGP) Intelligence Response Team (IRT) at Ekpoma.
According to the police, the suspects, who usually posed as Customs officers on Facebook and other social media platforms, defrauded Nigerians several millions of naira in the guise of selling auction vehicles.
It was gathered that their arrests followed series of complaints to the office of the IGP Ibrahim Idris on their activities.
Two IRT teams and operatives of the Tactical Intelligence Unit (TIU) were said to have been deployed to Edo State after several days of analysing on ground intelligence.
The police said the suspects confessed to the crime and explained their modus operandi.
Recovered from the suspects’ mobile phones and laptops were pictures of genuine Customs officers, account numbers they used and correspondence between them and their victims.
In his confessional statement, Aliyu said he has sold five cars. I received N50,000 for Toyota Camry, 150,000 for Toyota Corrolla, N35,000 for Gulf, N50,000 for Toyota Venza and N100,000 for the fifth car but I can’t remember the make.
The Customs is not aware I am doing this. We use accounts given to us by Samuel Taye.