Operatives of Rapid Response Squad, RRS, of the Lagos State Police Command have arrested a notorious suspected ring leader and architect of several bank frauds in the state.
Similarly, eight miscreants were also arrested in Ojodu Berger for extorting motorists and obstruction of traffic.
The suspected fraudster, popularly known as Harrison among his gang members, was arrested on Tuesday, after he was mentioned as the initiator of Subscriber Identification Module, SIMs, swap deal at a network provider’s outlet in Surulere, Lagos and Abeokuta, Ogun State.
Police source said the suspect had, before his arrest, been on the run over his involvement in a N2million fraud in one of the old generation banks in Lagos State, sometime in April 2016.
The suspect, who is regarded as the chief distributor of roles in all the bank frauds, was alleged to have a vast network with insiders in banks.
Ajisafe was also alleged to have exploited his vast network with insiders in banks to procure bank details and contacts of high net worth customers.
A source said: “When the suspected fraudsters were arrested, several print outs of customers details were found with the group. The balances on all the print outs were over N800 million.”
The fraud detection last year had prompted the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Fatai Owoseni, to convoke a meeting of bank executives with analysis of strategies adopted by the fraudsters.
It was further disclosed that Owoseni had urged banks in Lagos State to raise the bar of their anti-fraud internal mechanism.
The ring-leader’s latest offence was the recruitment of three suspects through which some SIM cards belonging to a particular network were being swapped and used for some of the gang’s bank fraud.
The Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Assistant Superintendent Olarinde Famous-Cole, said the four suspects have been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department, SCID, Panti, for further investigations.