The EFCC on Wednesday, July 31, 2013 arrested a notorious fraudster
who specialises in defrauding unsuspecting members of the public through
fraudulent bank credit alerts. Wale Olaide (a.k.a Wale Dollar) met his
waterloo when he duped one Abdulhamid Abubakar, a bureau de change
operator of N5, 000,000.00(Five Million Naira only).
According to EFCC Media, Olaide had
contacted Abubakar's younger brother, Hashim, also a bureau de change
operator based in Lome, Togo Republic that he wanted to purchase Five
Million Naira (N5, 000,000) equivalent in CFA Francs. Olaide requested
for his Nigerian bank account to enable him pay in the naira equivalent.
Hashim asked Abubakar to send his First Bank account details to Olaide.
Abubakar
acted immediately, sent his account details and after a while, he
received an alert supposedly from his bank that N5, 000.000.00 (Five
Million Naira) had been credited to his account domiciled at the Seme
Border branch. Upon receiving the alert, Abubakar informed his brother
who in turn released the CFA Franc equivalent of N5m to Olaide.
The next day Abubakar visited the bank to withdraw the money, but to
his dismay, his account balance didn't reflect the said transaction. He
complained to the branch manager and his statement of account was rolled
out but the transaction was not reflected. When Abubakar noticed that
the bank couldn't help, he approached the EFCC.
Series of
investigative initiatives by the EFCC yielded the arrest of Olaide who
is believed to be a member of a deadly syndicate involved in duping
unsuspecting members of the public through fraudulent banking
notification alerts.
While, the EFCC is working to unravel the
intricate network of operations of the syndicate, the Commission has
appealed to members of the public to be wary of this new trend in
criminality by fraudsters who use phony credit alerts to defraud others.