Detectives of the Police Special Fraud Unit (PSFU) Lagos; have arrested a 32-year-old undergraduate of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic (MAPOLY),
Abeokuta, Ogun State, named Timothy Fashina Oluwabukola and one of his co-conspirators, the Proprietor of Resign Regal Academy, Benin City,
Edo State, named Anthony Imonina Odemerho; for alleged offences bordering on Cyberfraud, Money Laundering, Fraudulent Conversion and
Stealing of airtime valued at One Billion, Two Hundred and TwentySeven Million, One Hundred and Forty Thousand Naira (N1,227,140,000.00).
The arrests is further to a petition to the Police by one of the GSM Operators in Nigeria following an Audit Report which showed discrepancies between Revenue Collection Accounts and Fulfilments.
Investigation revealed that between February and March 2024, Timothy Fashina, working in conjunction with yet to be identified 3rd -Party Web/Application Developers of the GSM Company, who used Virtual
Private Network (VPN) to encrypt their data and to masked their IP addresses; compromised the Network of the GSM provider by utilizing
authorization keys to gain entry into the Application Programme Interface (API) of the firm.
The functionalities of the API were manipulated by Timothy Fashina to repeatedly replicate One Hundred Thousand Naira (N100,000.00) airtime ticket genuinely bought on the network to obtain series of
multiple airtime fulfilments to the tune of One Billion, Two Hundred and Twenty-Seven Million, One Hundred and Forty Thousand Naira.
(N1,227,140,000.00) unto GSM numbers 8XXXXXX72, 08XXXXXX14 and 07XXXXXX28.
Afterwards, Anthony Imonina, based in Benin City, Edo State, downloaded the Mobile App of the GSM provider from Playstore and signed in with the Phone Number of Timothy Fashina. To proceed to the
dashboard of the App, Anthony Imonina needs an OTP from the GSM Provider which the network automatically sent as SMS to the phone housing/hosting the sim card as at the material time of attempt to log into the App.
It is at this juncture that Anthony Imonina contacted
Timothy Fashina who promptly provided the OTP before the request timed-out. Imonina imputed the OTP and is allowed entry into the GSM Mobile App of Timothy Fashina.
Having gained access to the App and its features, Anthony Imonina proceeded to convert the fraudulently obtained airtime to data (using “airtime-to-airtime” options of the App) and shared/sold same (using “share-data” option of the App) to fiftytwo (52) innocent subscribers which included individuals and
companies.
The sum of One Billion, Three Hundred and Fourteen Million, Six Hundred and Forty-Four Thousand, Eight Hundred and Thirty-Five Naira (N1,314,644,835), being payments received for the sold data was traced to the bank accounts of Anthony Imonina who forwarded One Billion, Two Hundred and Twenty Million, One Hundred and Forty-Seven Thousand Naira (N1,220,147,000.00) to Timothy Fashina, having deducted his commission of Eighty-Seven Million, Four Hundred and Ninety-Seven Thousand, Eight Hundred and Thirty-Five Naira (N87,497,835.00).
Proceeds of the fraud includes 110 hectares of farmland at Iseyin, Oyo State (N40,000,000.00), uncompleted building at Oluwo, Abeokuta, Ogun State (N6,000,000.00), 2-storey warehouse at Okeyeke,
Abeokuta, Ogun State (value yet to be determined), Inventory of Stocks in warehouse (N50,000,000.00), Towing/Truck Head (N24,000,000.00), crypto wallet (21,000 USDT), gift to friends (N16,000,000.00), 2 Hiace Buses, Toyota Sienna and a Volkswagen Bus.
The Legal Section of the Unit has filed criminal charges against the suspects at the Federal High Court, Ikoyi – Lagos.