Unidentified internet fraudsters are using emails bearing the names of officials of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in an attempt to defraud people, mostly foreigners, Daily Trust heard.
The fraudsters had used an e-mail text bearing the name of the acting Chairman of the Commission Alhaji Bako Abdullahi to make their letters appear real, a source in the commission said.
One of the emails used by the fraudsters is: ‘ unitednations.icpcunitoffice@gmail.com’ to deceive people into paying processing fee ostensibly to get compensation for former victims of fraud.
ICPC web master, Mustapha Hussain, said the commission found out about the scam through the volume of delivery failure notices they received from one of the ICPC official email account “ info@icpc.gov.ng” and icpcnews@yahoo.com as well as through enquires made by suspecting targets who alert the commission.
On what to do with the case, Mustapha said it is not under ICPC’s jurisdiction to investigate cybercrime “but we have already forwarded the case to the relevant agency.”
Extracts from one of the emails sent by the fraudsters bore the name of ICPC officials. It reads: “As chairman of this Anti-fraud Unit, I will like to introduce myself; I am (Mr. Godfrey Jones) a Nigerian born British Citizen appointed by the federal Government and the United Nations organization (U N O) in other to avert corruption, fraud, funds delay and impersonation. To this bestowed authority, I took an oath of allegiance to settle all fraud victims peacefully.”
The fraudsters will then demand for processing fees from the victims.
The is to lure victims at a later stage to pay a processing fee after obtaining their names, address, Bank details, Telephone numbers, Fax Number, and Amount previously lost.
When contacted, Mike Sowe, the commission’s head public enlightenment, said the commission has carried out disclaimer adverts in newspapers and is carrying out measures to improve the website and email security.