•Central Bank, others should develop measures to curb menace -Financial experts
•Police: Buy stolen phone, spend seven years in prison
Many Nigerians have since the introduction of electronic banking suffered huge financial losses from hoodlums, who steal their phones and hack into their bank accounts. The hoodlums either transfer the victims’ hard-earned savings into another accounts or purchase recharge cards from the account to perpetrate other heinous crimes. How can banks, mobile telecommunication providers and the security operatives save the citizens from this festering menace? INNOCENT DURU asks.
EKELE OBI, a Lagos resident took a loan from a commercial bank to attend to pressing family issues. Few days after collecting the loan, he was robbed of his mobile number containing details of the loan and other financial transactions. Before dawn, the thieves had hacked into his bank account and tampered with the loan.
His word: “I had my phone stolen at about 10pm while returning from work. My concern was not the phone but the money in my bank account because I had just taken a loan from a commercial bank before the incident. All through the night, I couldn’t sleep because I was worried that they could transfer the money before dawn.
“All through the night, I tried calling the line till late in the night but it was switched off. Early in the morning the following day, I ran to a welcome back centre to block the line. I did it and proceeded to report at a police station. On my way out of the police station, I tried calling my supposedly blocked line and to my surprise, it was ringing. A lady, who gave her name as Blessing, picked the call and said I should send her recharge card so that she could bring the phone to me.
“I asked her to send her direct mobile number to me so that I could send the card to it. She obliged but I was advised to send anything to her because she would not come. I ran back to the welcome back centre where I was told that the hoodlums were cancelling the message to block the line. I quickly ran to the mobile telecommunication company’s office at Ikotun and succeeded in blocking the line.
“At one of the banks where I have accounts, I was told that the hoodlums had bought recharge cards worth N11, 000 from the account on my line before the day broke. The bank officials helped me to block the account. I ran to the other bank where the hoodlums had also bought recharge cards worth thousands of naira on the same line.
Another victim, who gave his name simply as Babs, said he had about four of his bank accounts hacked into by the hoodlums. “I was robbed of my phone on a Friday night. That made it impossible for me to go to bank to block it for two good days. During that period, the thieves had hacked into my four bank accounts and bought recharge cards worth over N200, 000.”
Unlike Ekele, who said the thieves bought the recharge cards on his own mobile line, Babs said: “The thieves bought those cards for other mobile lines. I went to bank to collect details of the mobile lines they bought the cards to help security operatives in their investigation.”
It was a tale of woes for Oji, who also had a nasty experience in the hands of the miscreants. “The guys who stole my phone didn’t buy recharge cards from my account. They stole my money. I can never pity a thief again in my life because they are merciless. The pains of losing a phone, the contacts and other information in it are enormous not to talk of the thieves hacking into one’s bank accounts and stealing money from them.”
Agnes, a caterer, also shared her unpleasant experience. “A male customer came to my shop to buy baking items. Shortly after he left, I couldn’t see one of my phones gain. The stolen phone contained my bank details but I wasn’t using the lines to receive alert. Few hours after I couldn’t find the phone, I received an alert on my other phone that the sum of N14, 000 had been taken from my account. That amount was all I had in my account and I had planned to use it to attend to pressing family issues.”
A Lagos based journalist, who gave his name simply as Peter, also relived how his wrist watch and two phones were stolen from him at gun point.
“I was returning from work late in the evening and was very close to my house when two young men riding on a motorcycle blocked me. They pointed a pistol at me and ordered me to give them all that I had on me. They collected some money, my expensive wristwatch that is worth about N200, 000 and two powerful phones – an Infinix and Samsung Galaxy 6Edge. The wristwatch was a gift. I was perplexed after the incident, to the extent that I ran past my house after they left. They, however, didn’t tamper with my bank account thereafter, may be because I didn’t subscribe to online banking.”
Victims lament frustrations retrieving stolen lines
Despite the pains people pass through after their phones are stealing, some of the victims have cried out against what they described as needless frustrations by telecom operators and the alleged extortion by the police.
Some of the victims berated mobile telephone operators and the National Communication Commission (NCC) for compounding their woes when they went to retrieve their stolen lines.
Babs said: “I went with my international passport for identification but when I got there, they said I should go and bring my SIM pack. I was shocked by the demand because I had used the line for many years and don’t even know where the pack is. They said if I didn’t have that, that I should go and swear to an affidavit before they would give me another line. They said it was the NCC that mandated them to request for that.
“What then is the essence of the bio metric registration we did? After getting the whole thing, it can still take a whole day or more to get the line because of the large number of people they have to attend to. The process shouldn’t be that frustrating.”
The police are also alleged to be making life unbearable for victims. According to Ekele, “When I went to report the theft of my phone, the officers collected N1, 000 to record the incident. Thereafter, one of them said if I wanted them to investigate the theft, I should come for some ‘discussions’. I was told that it costs between N20, 000 and N30, 000 for SARS officials to track a stolen phone. I gave up and decided to get another phone because I knew that the stated sum would not be the end of what they would ask me to pay at the end of the day.
How we hack into victims’ bank accounts -Suspect
A suspect, Dare Oladimeji, during the week gave details of how he had been hacking into victims’ bank accounts. He was tracked to Idi-Oro area of Lagos during investigation into the withdrawal of N200,000 from a victim’s account . “I work on SIM cards to get money. When I lay my hands on any SIM card, I would slot it into any small phone that is not android. When that is done, I would press a code, which brings out the list of banks the owner of the SIM uses. “For example, if the person is using GTB, I will proceed with the normal code of *37*100#. If the person has money, we would use it to buy recharge card to confirm how much the owner has through the ‘debit alert’ that would pop up to reveal the balance. Thereafter, we would transfer the money into donors accounts, from where we would withdraw the money”.
Where the phone is locked, the suspect said, “Locking of phones with password does not stop me from hacking into any account, as long as I can lay my hands on the SIM card. All I need to do is to remove the SIM and slot it into a small phone.
“The only thing that can prevent me from hacking into an account through phone is when the SIM card itself is locked. But most people don’t lock their SIM cards, they only lock their phones. You can only beat my likes to the game if you lock your SIM card because only the owner knows the password.”
Banks should develop measures to curb menace -Experts
To save the citizens from further losing their hard-earned money after their phones might have been stolen, banks, especially the Central Bank of Nigeria, have been asked to do something about the ugly development. An economist and former CBN staff member, Prof. Jonathan Aremu, said: “I don’t think this is a serious problem because the Central Bank of Nigeria recognises electronic banking. What the CBN should do is to see if that policy is inclusive enough to accommodate issues that affect this kind of fraud and go back to adjust it. It is only when there is a policy and when there are provisions for infractions that you can punish people.
“What CBN as a managing authority needs to do is to check electronic banking policy issues and make sure that they address every issue connecting to electronic banking, including fraudulent practices, and try to plug the loopholes. They should make the responsibilities of the banks and the customers to be clear, so that if the commercial banks have a responsibility which they do not put in place, then, they can be called to question. Customers who have accounts also should have responsibilities. There must be a way of cautioning any infraction arising from using the electronic banking system.”
Dr. Austin Nweze of Lagos Business School noted that cases of phone theft and hacking into victims’ bank accounts is why many people don’t like doing online banking. “But do we stop going to war because people die when they go to war? Nations must fight wars and the same applies to individuals. We cannot because of these criminal elements refuse to embrace new technologies. This has been an issue all over the world and they have not been able to find a final solution.
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“In the 90s or early 2000, the German government were looking for two Nigerians who broke into a German bank and stole millions of Deutschmark. They placed a ransom on the hoodlums’ heads. The German government said they were not looking for the robbers to kill or send them to prison but to know how they were able to carry out the crime so that they could provide a solution to it. That is the way to go.
“As the banks notice all of these, they should begin to investigate to know the loopholes and come up with another technology to prevent it. At the banks’ end, they could ask for additional information about the customer’s mother’s maiden name and stuffs like that before any transaction is completed. These are some of the questions asked when you want to open an email. Banks should begin to introduce measures to help customers to have easier access to transact with them. The measures should not cause problems for customers, otherswise, it will affect the whole system. Anywhere in the world where crimes happen, what you need to do is to find out what is going wrong.”
SIM lock not a solution -ICT expert
Contrary to beliefs that using a password of SIM cards is the solution to hacking into victims’ bank accounts by phone thieves, some ICT experts have said it is not a way out.
An ICT expert, Engr. Abdukareem Bayewu, said: “I don’t believe in SIM lock. With SIM lock, the phone will still work with wifi. Now, you are not getting internet service from the SIM, you are getting internet from the wifi. For me, SIM lock will only stop USSD. What if you forget your password? I think those who are formulating policies should look at where there are loopholes.
“With some banks, you can perform some quick transactions on your phones without using password or pin code. That should be discouraged. I think insurance companies should look into the area of insuring losses and the banks could make it optional. It happens abroad. There is what they call charge back over there. When such things happen and the claims can be verified, they will debit the telecom operator. I believe charge back could be a solution. Another solution, for me, is insuring all these losses that come with all these kinds of transaction; when they were introducing ATM, I don’t know why insurance didn’t come with it. If you value the amount of losses and the amount of premium that would be paid, I am sure that the losses cannot outweigh the premiums.
“Everybody wants convenience of transactions and convenience of life and in the process of looking for this, it comes with pains. The next level should be how to minimise those pains. For me, insurance is a way out. When series of questions are asked before every transaction is done, that has taken away the convenience. If the network is down, what happens? CBN should be the one to mandate banks to tell their customers to insure their transactions.”
Lagos Police PRO: buy stolen phone, spend seven years in prison
The Lagos State Police Command’s spokesperson, DSP Bala Elkana, has warned Nigerians to desist from buying stolen phones. According to him, “Under our laws, it is quite a serious offence for one to buy stolen phones. The law even regards the buyer to be more culpable than even the thief. The punishment is more for the buyer than the thief. The wisdom behind that is to discourage people from stealing because if there is no market where they would sell those stolen things, they would not steal them but because they have a ready market, they easily steal.
“This is why the law makes the punishment stiffer for the buyer. The person who steals may get three years punishment, while the buyer could get seven years imprisonment and at the end, he will lose the property once we trace it to him. For a person to avoid buying stolen property, it is advisable that he buys things in the open market and not on the street or people who are just passing and not dealing in such wares.”
Explaining how a case of purchasing stolen phones can be checked, Elkana said: “The most important thing when we charge a buyer to court is to look at whether he has knowledge that that thing he bought was a stolen property. How do we test the knowledge? What is the market value and how much did he buy it? If the market value is N100 and you buy it N10, automatically, you will know that you are buying a stolen property. Secondly, we would check where he bought it. Was it in a regular market where such items are sold or he just bought it on the road from somebody?
“That is enough for him to know that he is not buying something that is genuine. Thirdly, we would check the time of the day that he bought the phone. These are important things we look at when we are investigating to check whether the person has knowledge that the phone was stolen or not.”
The PPRO also said the Police is working with banks to check fraud.
“If you look at the security arrangements in banks, it is such that apart from internal bank security officers who are well trained, we also have our personnel working closely with them in even in the banking halls. We also hold regular meetings of bank security chiefs on a regular basis to review the security of banks.”
For hackers, Elkana said: “Hacking is a cybercrime and the law will definitely catch up with them. We are also building intelligence and monitoring their activities. We have sent quite a number of them to jail.”
Four reasons phone theft is attractive –Force PRO
The Nigeria Police Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, described phone theft as one of the commonest crimes worldwide.
According to him, “It is not just a Nigerian thing. If you go anywhere and get a bit careless, they will take your phone. If you walk in some dark streets of London, they would snatch your phone. It happens everywhere because phones are handy. They are easy to conceal and on high demand worldwide. That makes them attractive to criminals. There are four factors that make phone theft attractive to criminals. The first reason is because they are handy. easily concealed. Three, they are in high demand and so, disposing them is not a challenge at all, and the fourth reason, which should of course be of concern to people, is that phone theft could also be a means to an end. Stealing of phones can be an end in itself where the thief is targeting the phone for his personal use or to sell it and make some money from it. In that case, they are stealing the phone as an end in itself. It could also be a means to an end, meaning that they are stealing the phone in order to use it as a tool for committing further crimes.”
Mba further said: “Security agencies worldwide are working aggressively towards dealing with this issue and the Nigeria Police is not an exception. But I think, fundamentally, the citizens have a lot of role to play. On our part, we are already preparing some public enlightenment materials on how people could secure their phones. In no distant time, we will be publishing them because it’s not possible for the police to come and police your phones for you.
“So, you have a duty to take care of your phone. You have a duty to know where to go and where not to go with your phone. If I have an expensive phone and there is a political or religious rally where I know that I would be jumping and crowd would be surging, I would not go with my phone or better still, go with a less expensive phone. If I am going to a night club where I may get high on brandy or whisky, I would keep my phone somewhere else or keep my phone with somebody who does not take alcohol as much as I do. If I am walking on a lonely and deserted area and ungodly hours and I know that, that area is notorious for criminal activities, I will probably put my phone in a way that it will not be so open to criminals. When your phone is stolen, you need to talk to the police, particularly if you think you have sensitive materials or sensitive information on it”
Reacting to allegations of extortion of victims by the police, the Force PRO said: “I don’t know about people paying money to report. If you are asked to pay money, you have a remedy. You can go and report to the DPO in charge of that station or you go to the Commissioner of Police in charge of the state to complain that his men are not being professional. I think the best thing is for people to take preventive measures, because even if your phone is recovered but the money has been taken, that will take another round of investigation to recover your money.”
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