FBI arrests 29 Nigerians for ‘internet fraud’

United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has disclosed that it had arrested 74 ’email scammers,’ 29 of them Nigerians in a global operation.
The bureau also said the criminal scheme, which was used by the suspects, originated from Nigeria.
The FBI said 42 suspects were nabbed in the U.S., 29 in Nigeria, and three others in Canada, Mauritius, and Poland.
Some of those arrested were working as part of a larger network of criminal organisations, while others acted alone, the bureau said.
In a statement published on the agency’s website on Monday, it said the operation was a coordinated effort by the federal authorities including the Department of Justice and the FBI aimed at intercepting illegal wire transfers from businesses and individuals across the globe.
“Operation Wire Wire,” a coordinated effort by Interpol, national police forces, and U.S. agencies including the FBI, DoJ, Homeland Security, Treasury Department, Secret Service, and the Postal Inspection Service, was conducted over a six-month period.
”In addition to the arrests, it resulted in the seizure of nearly $2.4 million, and the recovery of approximately $14 million in fraudulent wire transfers,” the bureau said.
The coordinated law enforcement effort was “to disrupt international business e-mail compromise (BEC) schemes that are designed to intercept and hijack wire transfers from businesses and individuals.”
The statement read in part: “BEC, also known as cyber-enabled financial fraud, is a sophisticated scam that often targets employees with access to company finances and trick them using a variety of methods like social engineering and computer intrusions into making wire transfers to bank accounts thought to belong to trusted partners, but instead belong to accounts controlled by the criminals themselves.”