Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission cautions against relationships on social media

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has cautioned Nigerians against relationships in the social media  soliciting any favours.

The advice is contained in a statement issued by the EFCC spokesman, Mr Wilson Uwujaren, on Tuesday in Abuja.

The statement said the warning became necessary following the alleged use of names of spouses of prominent Nigerian to defraud members of the public.

It said the commission had uncovered a sophisticated web of tricks involving a 34-year-old graduate of Lagos State University, who used the names of spouses of prominent Nigerians to dupe people.

It said the suspect had cloned the facebook accounts of the wife of Lagos State Governor, Mrs Abimbola Fashola, and the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

The commission said the suspect also cloned the facebook accounts of the wife of the FCT Minister, Mrs Aisha Bala Muhammed, and the Director, Abuja Geographical Information Systems, Jamilah Tangaza.

"Then, he went on a solicitation binge that fetched him thousands of naira and in each of the instances; he devised clever baits to lure his victims.

"Once he successfully opened a facebook account with the false identity, he began to send out messages and soon, requests for friendship flooded his account.

"He exploited the frenzy by the unwary facebook crowd that wanted to be friends with wives of prominent Nigerians by directing some of them to meet with his acclaimed 'personal assistants'", the statement said.

It said the acclaimed personal assistants in turn demanded for various sums of money from the victims to either get a job or get connected to influential people in government and the society.

Source - NAN