Alleged N1.2 billion fraud: Police arrest university student and owner

 

Investigators of the Special Anti-Fraud Unit of the Lagos State Police have arrested Timothy Fashina Oluwabukola, a 32-year-old undergraduate student of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Ogun State, and his accomplice and owner of Resign Regal Academy, Benin City, Edo State, Anthony Imonina Odemerho, for alleged computer fraud, money laundering, fraudulent conversion and theft of airtime worth N1,227,140,000.00.

The unit’s spokesperson and Superintendent of Police, SP Eyitayo Johnson, confirmed the arrest of both men.

Johnson said the arrests were made following a petition filed with the police by one of Nigeria’s GSM operators, following an audit report that showed discrepancies between revenue collection accounts and compliance.

He explained that the investigation revealed that between February and March 2024, Fashina, working in collaboration with yet-to-be-identified third-party application/web developers of the GSM company, used a virtual private network to encrypt their data and mask their IP addresses, compromising the GSM provider’s network by using authorization keys to access the company’s application programming interface.

He also stated: “The API functionalities were manipulated by Timothy Fashina to repeatedly replicate N100,000 call tickets actually purchased on the network to achieve a series of multiple call fulfillments amounting to N1,227,140,000.00 on GSM numbers 08XXXXXX72, 08XXXXXX14 and 07XXXXXX28.

“Subsequently, Anthony Imonina, a resident of Benin City, Edo State, downloaded the GSM operator’s mobile app from the Playstore and registered with Timothy Fashina’s phone number.

“To proceed to the app dashboard, Anthony Imonina needs an OTP from the GSM provider that the network automatically sends as an SMS to the phone hosting the SIM card when attempting to access the app.

“It is at this point that Anthony Imonina contacted Timothy Fashina, who promptly provided the OTP before the request expired.

“Imonina entered the OTP and was granted access to Timothy Fashina’s GSM mobile app.

“After gaining access to the App and its features, Anthony Imonina proceeded to convert the fraudulently obtained airtime into data, using the App’s ‘airtime-to-airtime’ options, and shared/sold it, using the App’s ‘share data’ option, to 52 innocent subscribers, including individuals and businesses.

“The sum of N1,314,644,835, which was payments received for the sold data, was traced to the bank accounts of Anthony Imonina who forwarded N1,220,147,000.00 to Timothy Fashina, after deducting his commission of N87,497,835.00.

“The proceeds of the fraud include 110 hectares of agricultural land at Iseyin, Oyo State worth N40,000,000.00, an unfinished building at Oluwo, Abeokuta, Ogun State worth N6,000,000.00, a 2-storey warehouse at Okeyeke, Abeokuta, Ogun State, the value of which is yet to be determined.

“Warehouse stock inventory N50,000,000.00, Towing head/truck N24,000,000.00, Crypto wallet, 21,000 USDT, A gift to friends N16,000,000.00, Two Hiace buses, One Toyota Sienna and One Volkswagen bus.

“The legal section of the unit has filed criminal charges against the suspects at the Federal High Court in Ikoyi – Lagos.

“Efforts are being intensified to arrest third-party developers who are members of the syndicate and to identify other assets acquired with the proceeds of the fraud.” [Eagle Online]

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