• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Police launch cybercrime reporting portal, arrest 3 for cyber-related offences

Adverse effects of cybercrime on society and personality

The Nigeria Police Force has unveiled a Cybercrime Reporting Web Portal to tackle the growing menace of cybercrime in the country.

According to a statement issued on Thursday by Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, the portal which can be accessed by clicking on the link https://incb.police.gov.ng/ is part of efforts directed at ensuring ease of crime reportage by members of the public to enable prompt investigation, arrest and prosecution of perpetrators of cybercrime and other related offences.

“The portal caters for complaints pertaining to cybercrimes. With this, victims/complainants can now report cases of cybercrime online, at any time and from any part of the world. The cases are promptly attended to by the Cybercrime Unit of the Force domiciled with the INTERPOL National Central Bureau (NCB), Force Headquarters, Abuja and the newly created Cybercrime Unit at the INTERPOL Annex, Alagbon Close, Ikoyi, Lagos,” Mba said.

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“The new portal will provide updates on achievements being recorded by the Nigeria Police and will, among other things, avail the citizens’ knowledge of basic cyber-related issues such as emerging cybercrime trends, the modus operandi of the cyber crooks and offer tips on how citizens could make themselves less vulnerable within the cyberspace,” he said in the statement.

The police therefore urged potential users of the portal to ensure that only correct and accurate information, devoid of deliberate falsehood, misrepresentation and misinformation, is provided when filing their complaints.

Meanwhile, according to the statement, three suspects have been arrested by the Nigeria Police Cybercrime Unit, INTERPOL National Central Bureau (NCB), Abuja.

The three suspects are Onwuka Emmanuel Chidiebere a.k.a Ceeceeboss TMT (32yrs) currently residing at Lekki, Lagos State, a native of Aro-Ikpa in Abia State; Ikechukwu Ohanedozie a.k.a Dozzy (34yrs), and Onuegwu Ifeanyi a.k.a SSGToolz (35yrs) of Prof’s Avenue, Umudagu, Mbieri, Mbaitolu LGA, Imo State.

They were arrested following intelligence report received from INTERPOL Cybercrime Directorate in Singapore on global attacks by Nigerian cyber gangs who engage in mass email phishing campaigns and distribution of malwares aimed at stealing authentication data from browsers and email headers.

The police statement said further that findings so far reveal that of the three suspects, Onuegwu Ifeanyi specialises in creating, designing, selling of phishing links and hosting malwares on website used by the gang for phishing and hacking purposes. He collects charges running into several millions of naira from other fraudsters he mentors and improves their phishing capabilities.

Onwuka Emmanuel Chidiebere, a graduate of Business Administration from Imo State University, is said to specialise in business email compromise and hacking. A comprehensive forensic analysis reveals that he had in his laptop-computer over 50,000 email accounts and websites including passwords of various individuals and corporate entities across the world. He recruited the third suspect Ikechukwu Ohanedozie, a medical student of Imo State University, into the gang. Ohanedozie sorts and profiles e-mail accounts to determine financial strengths of prospective victims and passes on information obtained therefrom to Chidiebere.

The police said that all the suspects will be charged to court on conclusion of investigation and prosecuted in line with the Cybercrime Prevention/Prohibition Act, 2015.