Spokesman of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, Fabian Benjamin, has said that a team of internet hackers hacked into its system with the aim of swindling unsuspecting students of their monies during registration for this year’s University Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME.

Benjamin made the revelation in a statement issued in Abuja on Saturday.

He said the suspects were however apprehended by men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC.

According to the JAMB spokesman, the suspects confessed to having spent over N20 million to construct a radio platform with which they hacked into JAMB’s registration portal.

He said: “These registration thieves deployed fake biometric capturing mechanisms and super-imposed registration slips just to satisfy the curiosity of innocent candidates that their registration was successful.

“And on the day of examination, such candidates’ data would either be edited, or not found on the JAMB data base.

“Such candidates would not be verified during the examination proper.”

Benjamin further stated that the hackers were arrested separately in Oyo, Ogun and Borno states before they were brought to Abuja by operatives of the NSCDC.

“While being paraded in the presence of the Commandant-General of NSCDC, Abdullahi Gana Mohamadu, the fraudsters confessed to numerous registration infractions that JAMB couldn’t imagine,” Benjamin said.

Recall that JAMB had called off its scheduled mock UTME exercise, which it intended to use to get candidates acquainted to the newly introduced Computer-Based TEST, CBT, system.

The admission board attributed the cancellation to malfunctioning of its systems, but promised to hold the mock exercise at a later date.

The new date is yet to be announced.