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

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*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.