The police in Kaduna have arrested three suspected internet fraudsters notorious for defrauding unsuspecting students of the Kaduna State University (KASU) of their school fees, to the tune of over N60m.
In a statement on Wednesday, Mansir Hassan, spokesperson of the Kaduna state police command, identified the arrested suspects as Muhammad Uthman Busari of Nariya Kaduna, AbdulAzeez Hamza of Hayin Dan-mani area, Kaduna and Noel Nims Audiya.
He said, “the suspects who are cybercafe operators, compromised the students’ registration portal and took undue advantage of them for pay their fees online, rather than via the normal banking platforms.
According to the police spokesperson, “The suspects often collects tuition fees from the students in full, but will pay a lesser amount into the State’s Treasury Single Account (TSA) and go further to intercept and manipulate the electronic transaction receipts from the TSA to read complete payment.”
The statement said, “So far, the suspects have short-changed over 300 students of KASU and the total amount involved is put at over N60m”.
He added that Muhammad Uthman Busari, the principal suspect, used his share of the money in building furnishing a house, purchase of a car, electronic appliances, gadgets and plots of land in both Kaduna and Kwara states.”
Hassan said the suspects have since been charged to court for prosecution.
He added that in order to checkmate the activities of cyber related crimes in the state, Adamu Ali, the police commissioner, has established a cybercrime unit to facilitate the investigation of such crimes and other related offences.
He urged victims of social media accounts hacking, fake purchase alerts, deceptive social romance and cryptocurrency/forex frauds, among many other offences to forward their complaints to the police commissioner, through the newly created unit for diligent investigation.
