Tofunmi
The Ibadan Zonal Office of the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission is on the trail of a suspected ATM fraudster,
who goes by the name Akinade Tofunmi.
The suspect is currently on the prowl, targeting possible victims in ATM Points
and Point of Sales (POS) machines across the country.
In her last operation, Tofunmi who
operates with the identity of her victims raked in about N3million within 24
hours.
One of the methods employed by the
suspected fraudster is to politely approach people having difficulty using the
ATM and offering to help, only to dupe them after obtaining their personal
identification numbers.
This was the scenario that played
out on Friday, June 3, 2016, when a woman identified simply as Alhaja attempted
to use the ATM in Ibadan, Oyo state while her husband waited for her in the car.
Tofunmi observing that the elderly lady had some difficulty, offered to help.
In the process, she obtained her PIN number, and after the transaction, swapped
her card with another in her possession.
Armed with the card and the PIN as
well as the knowledge that the account had a credit balance of N3million, she
made several ATM withdrawals and carried out PoS transactions.
Having exceeded the daily withdrawing
limit, Tofunmi waited for a few minutes into the following day which was a
Saturday.
Shortly after midnight, she made
another rounds of withdrawals to the tune of N150,000.00 (one hundred and fifty
thousand naira) which was also the withdrawal limit for that day.
Since it was a weekend when most are
banks officially closed for business, Alhaja and her husband were helpless as debit
alerts start coming in torrent.
Not satisfied with what she had
stolen, the fraudster started transferring funds out of the account.
In desperate need of where and how
to empty the balance in the account, Tofunmi went to a night club where she met
a motorcycle transporter, popularly known as Okada rider whom she approached for help.
Her decoy was that she had enough
money in her account, but could not access it having exceeded her daily
withdrawal limit.
She showed the bike man her balance
and pleaded with him to give her his ATM card, account details and PIN for a
quick teller transfer from her (Alhaja’s) account . With that, she was able to
transfer some of Alhaja’s money to the bike man’s account thereby stealing the
identity of the unsuspecting bike man.
To further cover her tracks and
ensure a total clear out of the victim’s account, she got the motorcyclist to
take her to a hotel.
At the hotel reception while paying
for her accommodation which was N10, 000.00 (ten thousand naira) for a night,
she deliberately credited the hotel’s account with N101, 000 (one hundred and
one thousand naira) feigning a mistake and demanded a refund of N91, 000.00
(ninety-one thousand naira) as overpayment. This was also done with Alhaja’s
ATM card through the PoS machine at the Hotel.
To further conceal her identity,
Tofunmi provided fake personal details in the hotel and gave the hotel the bike
man’s account detail when the hotel management requested for an account to
deposit the refund.
All these happened on a Saturday.
By Sunday, Alhaja’s funds had been
moved to the fraudster ( through both cash
withdrawals and transfers to the bike
man’s account domiciled in the same bank). All the while, the fraudster was in
possession of ATM cards of both Alhaja (the first victim) and the bike man (the
second victim).
The bike man was arrested on Monday
June 5, when he could no longer reach the fraudster on phone and went to the
bank to request for another ATM card.
The suspect has allegedly defrauded
others and has been spotted in other parts of the country.
The general public is by this
release, enjoined to be vigilant when carrying out transactions via ATMs and to
avoid disclosing their Personal Identification Numbers (PIN) to others.
Wilson
Uwujaren
Head, Media & Publicity
19th July, 2016
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