TWENTY FIVE students of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTEC), Ogbomosho, Oyo State have been arrested by the Operatives of the Advance Fee Fraud Unit of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for their involvement in various forms of cyber crime including romance scam, love scam, possession of forged documents, and obtaining money by false pretence.

Wilson Uwujaren, Head Media and Publicity of EFCC made this known in a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday.

He said the students, aged between 18 and 29 years old, were arrested at their off-campus hostels, following a three-day raid carried out between September 16 and 19, 2019 by operatives of the commission.

According to him, the operatives, who acted on the intelligence reports, which was investigated using sophisticated equipment.

“The raid also followed months of surveillance and monitoring of their activities,” Uwujaren said.

The names of the students as contained in the statement include: “Pelumi Adigun, 18; Umaru Frederick, 21; Damilola Emmanuel, 22; Tomiwa Oyewole, 29; Adeleke Owolabi, 24; Oladosu Abdullahi, 23; Abdulmusaq Ismail, 25; Isajimi Joshua, 23; Olaniyan Tunde, 22, and Ebosele Francis, 28”.

“Others are: Oladejo Ibrahim, 26; Oluwadamilare Abimbola, 25; Orimoloye Joshua, 23; Alfred Samuel, 22; Bayewu Ishola, 23; Abiola Gbenga, 25;Alfred Daniel, 20; Agboola Solomon, 21; Arolewola Damilola, 25; Amoo Tunmise, 23; Akeem Taiwo, 25; Segun Ajibola, 25; Hassan Segun, 24; Onicha Joel, 23, and Tafa Bassit, 25.

“In the course of executing the search, Ismail, who confessed to being involved in internet fraud, took operatives round hostels, leading to the arrest of many of the culprits. Some of the suspects who jumped
over the fence to escape arrest, were nabbed in the process,” the statement read.

Some of the items recovered from them, believed to be the proceeds of their illegal activities online, include, “a 4matic  Benz, a Toyota Camry, a Toyota Corolla, two Macbook computers, two iPads, two iPhones and many other documents, which will be subjected to forensic analysis”.

The EFCC spokesperson said the suspected internet fraudsters, are currently in the custody of the commission and would soon be arraigned in court.