‘How We Steal from Bank Accounts Using Lost Sim Cards’ — Suspect

*Police nab 78-year-old arms dealer

The Nigeria Police yesterday paraded 39 crime suspects including a 46-year-old suspect, Zakarri Hahaya also known as ‘’his excellency’’, who specialised in using lost sim cards to steal money from bank accounts.

The Intelligence Response Team (IRT) of the police also arrested a 78-year-old arms dealer in Markudi.

Yahaya, who was among 39 suspects paraded over various crimes in Abuja confessed to his crimes, saying that bank accounts of many Nigerians receiving alerts were easy to access by using their account and phone numbers.

Parading the suspects in Abuja, Force Spokesman, Frank Mba, said the suspects were arrested across the country by Force Investigation Bureau of Intelligence Response Team (IRT) led by Tunji Disu, who took over recently from the suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari.

The cyber-crime suspect narrated how he stole millions from bank accounts without detection. “My name is Zakarriyah Yahaya, I was born and brought up in Jos. I was arrested last month in Mabushi here in Abuja. I use to reset any SIM that receives bank alert. I will reset it and steal all the money inside the bank account.

‘’I do reset it with victim’s bank account number through bank code from the first to the last number. Any bank that we get, we first use it to buy recharge card, from there, they will send us the alert. From the alert, we will now get the account number,” he said.

He said the bank accounts were easy to reset.

He disclosed that they started the business two years ago, stating that no fewer than eleven members of the gang were working for him, adding that they operated in three main cities, notably, Kano, Plateau and Abuja.

He said he could not recall the exact numbers of bank accounts they had stolen from but once withdrew N800,000 from one of the accounts.

Giving further insights into their operations, Mba said the criminals purchased SIM packs in large numbers and re-activated old phone numbers whose owners had discarded.

“Yahaya Zakari controls multiple gangs of cyber crooks whose stock-in-trade is to go after SIM cards, phone numbers of innocent Nigerians, breaking into their privacy, stealing their bank IDs and monies from the accounts.

‘’They have two modus operandi. The first is to go and purchase MTN lines, the new starter kits in large numbers. When they get these, they tried to hack BVN”, he said.

According to him, “experience has shown that at this stage some of our service providers are recycling old numbers. Persons who had used phones and probably for some reasons have travelled out of the country or for any other reason chose not to use the number again and those numbers are dormant and currently being recycled and being re-issued to persons as new numbers.

‘’They are very skillful and they have ways of knowing or decoding old numbers. So, when they put on their MTN starter packs, and they are given options to select numbers, they select old numbers, and at random, they tried to explore and see if they could get bank details from those old numbers. That is their first strategy.’’

Mba said the second mode entails “attacking their victims physically, collecting their phones and targeting their SIM. They are not interested in the phones but the SIM cards.”

He, therefore, appealed to Nigerians to be vigilant and guard their phones jealously and quickly report to their banks and service providers when thier phones are stolen.

‘’The second, which is very dangerous where they sometimes hurt innocent citizens both physically and financially is through deploying gangs that attack innocent citizens, forcefully snatch their phones or sometimes get these phones stolen via pickpocketing.

‘’Once they get these phones, their target is not the phone, no matter how expensive your phone is they are not interested in that phone, that’s not the main target. That could actually be a by-product or a side benefit from the crime, but the major target is your SIM card”, he said.

“Once they get your SIM card, they tried to play around with it and see if they could find anything that can link them or take them straight into victims’ accounts, and they had done these successfully.

‘’With that if they get access to your bank details they go straight to steal your money. The lesson for all of us here is that, we must guard our phones jealously. Even when you lose a phone or a number and you think you have got two or three other numbers or lines, don’t let your number go back to strange hands, go back to your service providers and do all what’s necessary, re-activate and re-claim your lines,” he advised.

Mba said the 39 suspects were involved in other crimes including armed robbery, kidnapping, trafficking in weapons, car theft, cybercrime, among others.

Items recovered from the suspects include 13 AK47 rifles, two RPGs, 750 AK 47 live ammunitions, 11 AK 47 magazines, 30 live cartridges, 58 wraps of explosives suspected to be dynamites, one Turaya handset, 157 new MTN Sim cards, among other incriminating weapons.

Meanwhile, the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) of the police arrested a 78-year-old arms dealer in Markudi

Ogala Joseph ’78’ is a farmer from North Bank, Makurdi and lives in Ajetachi village, Markudi.

A police statement said Joseph is married with nine wives and 36 children.

It said after about two weeks of intelligence gathering and adequate surveillance, on June 4, 2021 at about 1100 hours, Joseph was apprehended by agents of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) with two Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG) at Ajetachi Village, Markurdi.

Further interrogation revealed that the father of 36 was more involved in the sales and re-sales of arms in Taraba and Benue State as his activities contributed to the proliferation and equipping of bandit groups in the region.

The IRT Commander, DCP Olatunji Disu, commended the team and expressed determination to win the battle against crime and criminality.