Joseph Bakare
Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, acting on intelligence on emerging internet crimes involving foreigners, on Thursday, January 9, 2025 broke another syndicate of fraudsters specializing in hotel review job scam, targeting mostly United Kingdom victims.
They arrested 105 suspects comprising four Chinese and 101 Nigerians at Naka Hall Plaza in Abutu Garba Street, Gudu, Abuja. 100 compact Work Stations were recovered from the suspects.
How the Fraud Works
Hotel Review Job Scam is a globally- entrenched internet-related fraud that is newly appearing on the Nigerian space
The modus operandi involves Chinese who usually recruit local and computer-savvy Nigerians as Customer Service Representatives.
The Representatives are made to work on a prepared template of criminality online. They are given identities and names usually foreign, through which they chat with expatriates. The crime involves making false representation to victims to win their trust to engage in hotel ratings with promises of $5 for every hotel that is reviewed. As the victims get paid, they are encouraged to review more hotels and the payment is increased to $10 per rating. After a long while, the victim is encouraged to make bookings in any of the rated hotels for as much as $500 and that the company would pay back with chunky interest into a crypto wallet bearing their names. After making bookings, the victim would not be able to open the wallet and his or her money is lost.
The fraud is an intricate mechanism of defrauding foreigners and it is targeted at victims in Europe and other parts of the world.
We are working with other law enforcement agencies across the world to dig deeper into the global dimensions involved in this crime.
Abuja Arrest, a Further Intelligence Connected to the Lagos 792 Fraudsters
The EFCC achieved this latest breakthrough barely a month after 792 suspected investment and internet fraudsters were arrested by operatives of the Commission on Tuesday, December 10, 2024. They were arrested at an edifice known as Big Leaf Building at No 7, Oyin Jolayemi Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. This is almost concluded and the suspects will be charged to Court in the coming days.