Lagos Police command have arrested five persons, including a teenage girl for allegedly running a syndicate that steals people’s SIM cards to withdraw money from their bank accounts.
The suspects, Daniel Asigbe, Ikechukwu Aigbe, Frank Opara, Seun Dairo, and Godliness Ndukwe, the teenage girl among them, were arrested by the operatives of the Zonal Monitoring Unit of Zone 2 Police Command, comprising Lagos and Ogun states.
The Spokesman of Zone 2 of the police command, Hauwa Idris, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, confirmed the arrest of the suspects in a statement signed on Thursday.
The police spokesperson said: “Operatives of Zonal Monitoring Unit have arrested a syndicate of five persons comprising four males and one female who specialise in stealing and transferring funds from people’s accounts through their SIM cards.
“It all started on 20th of June, 2020 when one Daniel Asigbe, stole a Samsung X9 from a barber’s shop in Lekki area of Lagos, removed the SIM card and gave it to Ikechukwu who fraudulently got the owner’s BVN and sent same to one Yele (currently at large) who later generated the account owner’s PIN and gave it to Ikechukwu.
“Ikechukwu then transferred N2.3 million from the account to Seun Dairo’s account, he also purchased N20,000 worth of airtime from the account.”
Idris added that “Meanwhile, Seun also gave another SIM card to Frank Opara apparently for another deal.”
She added that “members of the public are hereby advised to quickly draw necessary attention in case of loss of mobile phones or other valuable.”
According to the police, “investigation is in progress as the suspects would be charged to court upon completion for prosecution.”