The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Lagos zonal office, has arrested a suspected Internet fraudster, Ake Oluseun, for tax fraud, otherwise known as Ijoba in local parlance.
The 30-year-old suspect, a graduate of Computer and Information Science, was arrested in Lagos, following intelligence report.
Sometime in January this year, the suspect, who owns Canbit Music, Canbit Resources (Nig.) Limited, Istartup Enterprise and Volta Company, allegedly sent an email to an employee of an American company requesting for the W-2s of the staff.
The W-2 form shows the reports of an employee’s annual wages and the amount of taxes withheld from his or her pay cheque, which an employer sends to his or her employees and the Internal Revenue Services, IRS.
The suspect, who impersonated the Chief Executive Officer, CEO, of the American company, was alleged to have received 790 ( Seven Hundred and Ninety) W-2s from the staff, which he sold to some anonymous buyers in the ‘dark world’.
The ‘dark world’ is an illegal method of cash remittance across countries and does not involve physical movement of cash.
Oluseun, who is also being investigated for Business E-mail Compromise, BEC, was allegedly paid with e-currency such as bitcoins and perfect money.
Also, the suspect was alleged to have printed some American bank cheques, which he presented as evidence of payment to his victims online.
Items recovered from the suspect include American cheques, three external hard drives, mobile phones, two laptops, Spectranet Router, flash drives, printer and USB modems.
Investigation revealed that Ijoba is a new type of phishing, which attempts to lure human resources, accounting and pay roll staff of a company to disclose the W- 2s of all the employees in the company.
The suspect will soon be charged to court after investigation is concluded.
