The Anambra State Police Command on Thursday called on members of the public to endeavour to report issues of stolen phones or ATM cards without delay to the nearest police stations as well as their individual banks to enable the deactivation of their accounts.

The Command had in September this year issued similar alert when fraudsters disguised as Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) staff in charge of all bank transactions (which is non-existent) placed phone calls to their targets whose bio data was downloaded either through Facebook or other social media platforms and demanded from them their date of birth or biometric verification numbers (BVN) in order to gain access to their targets account numbers, thereby transferring all the money into another account through electronic means.

A statement by the state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), SP Haruna Mohammed, on behalf of the Commissioner of Police, Garba Umar, enjoined people to also refrain from availing their personal information particularly date of birth or biometric identification numbers (BVN) to unfamiliar sources in order not to fall victims of syndicates.

The statement reads in part: “Information at the disposal of Anambra State Police Command has revealed that fraudsters have devised new methods of dispossessing innocent citizens of their hard earned money deposited at various commercial banks in the country.

“These syndicates migrate from one state to the other with same method of defrauding their unsuspecting victims after getting vital information on their account details.

“Credible information revealed that the syndicate will block the GSM numbers attached to their victims account for hours, clone it or re-register the number to generate the customer’s pin and thereafter drain all the money in that account within the shortest period of time.

“One of such instance took place last month when one of their victim (Name withheld) received five hundred thousand Naira debit alert from his account after hours of “no network” on his phone, he rushed to his Bank only to discover that the sum of thirty million naira (N30,000,000)was withdrawn from his account without his authorisation or corresponding SMS.”

According to the statement, same syndicates have devised another method of assessing their victim’s account through stolen phones or lost ATM cards, adding that they do this in collaboration with some unscrupulous bank officials.

The Command explained that such practices are usually perpetrated by youths who instead of channelling their talents through legitimate means of attaining better living conditions in conformity with acceptable norms in the society resort to criminal acts in order to get rich quickly, by all means.

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