Interpol arrests alleged ringleader of £45m scamming network in Port Harcourt

Nigerians know how to make it to the headlines for all the wrong reasons sometimes. This time, Interpol has revealed that a Nigerian man was indeed the head of an online fraud network who had succeeded in defrauding companies around the world of about $60million (£45million).

The 40-year-old, known only as Mike, was arrested in June along with a 38-year-old in Port Harcourt.

The man in question is said to head a network of about 40 people which operate from Nigeria, Malaysia, South Africa. “In one case, a target was conned into paying out $15.4m,” Interpol said. “The network compromised email accounts of small to medium businesses around the world including Australia, Canada, India, Malaysia, Romania, South Africa, Thailand and the United States.”

The scams included a supplier’s email being compromised and fake messages sent to a buyer with instructions for payment to a bank account under the network’s control, or the email account of a high-level executive being taken over and a request for a wire transfer sent to an employee responsible for handling such requests.

The arrest was carried out with the support of Nigeria’s anti-fraud agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).