A robbery suspect , Zakarriyah Yahaya, has disclosed how they emptied many Nigerians’ bank accounts using their lost or stolen SIM cards.
Yahaya, 46,was among 39 suspects paraded at the defunct headquarters of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Abuja by the police.
He said that bank accounts of many Nigerians receiving alerts were easy to access by using their account and phone numbers.
Yahaya, also known as ‘His Excellency’ told journalists that he was arrested last month in Mabushi in Abuja.
He disclosed that he used to reset any SIM that receives bank alert,adding that he will reset it and steal all the money in the bank account.
He added:“I do reset it with victim’s bank account number through bank code. Any bank that we get, we first use it to buy recharge card, from there, they will send us the alert. From the alert, we will now get the account number.’’
According to him,they started the theft two years ago and has no fewer than 11 members, adding that they operate in Kano, Plateau and Abuja.
He disclosed that his gang they had once removed N800,000 from one of an account.
The force spokesman,Frank Mba said the criminals had multiple SIM packs and re-activated old phone numbers and explored bank accounts details.
Mba added:‘’Yahaya Zakari controls multiple gangs of cyber crooks whose stock-in-trade is to go after SIM cards, phone numbers of innocent Nigerians, breaking into their privacy, stealing their bank IDs, and monies from their accounts.They have two main modus oprandi. The first is to go and purchase or acquire MTN lines, the new starter kits in large numbers. When they get these, they hack BVN.
“Experience has shown them that at this stage, some of our service providers are recycling old numbers and persons who had used phones and probably for some reasons have travelled out of the country, or for any other reason chose not to use the number again”
