DELTA: Cleaner hacks into hotel’s email, diverts N2m, targets N500m

The long arm of the law has caught up with a 30-year-old cleaner identified as Sylvester Ahuja who hacked into his hotel’s email and diverted the sum of N2 million into his account.

Reports say the cleaner who was arrested by men of the Rapid Response Squad in a hotel in Warri, Delta State was allegedly attempting to defraud the firm of another N500m when he was nabbed.

Police reports revealed that after the suspect had successfully hacked into the company’s email address, posing as its managing director in April 2017 with the sum of N2 million paid into his account, Ahuja again used the same approach in June 2017, requesting the payment of N500m into a Zenith Bank account which led to his arrest.

“The RRS team, in its investigations, discovered that the initial N2m was withdrawn with a debit card belonging to the suspect, Sylvester Ahuja,” a source said.

However, the suspect denied the allegations leveled against him claiming that his friend Emmanuel, a member of the National Youth Service Corps, whom he met at his workplace in April 2017 was the mastermind and the real culprit.

Read also: How DSS foiled terrorists plot to bomb Abuja, Kano, 5 other states

Ahuja said: “Emmanuel served in Warri and he told me sometime in April 2017 that he was stranded and that somebody was going to send money to him. He requested that I allow him use my ATM card because he couldn’t locate his. I released it to him with my PIN. He said I should alert him whenever I received credit alert on my phone and I did.

“I expected the transactions to have been completed after two days. After almost a week, I saw him and requested my ATM card; he told me he was still using it. Afterwards, I asked him again and he told me that he had misplaced it. He didn’t return the debit card again.

“After my salary was paid, I approached my bank for cash. That was when I was told that my account had issues. It was at that time that I got to know that my account was used for a fraudulent transaction. Since the incident, I have not been able to trace Emmanuel. When I tried to find him, I was informed that he was out of Warri.”

Confirming the arrest of the suspect, ASP Olarinde Famous-Cole, the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, revealed that investigations into the case were still ongoing and the suspect had been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Yaba, for further probe.

 

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