The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Wednesday released an alarming statement that fraudsters have cloned the mobile telephone numbers of its Acting Chairman, Ibrahim Magu, with the purpose of extorting money from Nigerians.
According to the spokesman of the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, the fraudsters have made calls to prominent personalities in the country and close associates of the agency’s Czar.
“It has become necessary to alert the general public to the activities of fraudsters who have been impersonating the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu, and extorting money from members of the public under various guises.
“A few weeks after the commission raised the alarm over the activities of a syndicate which opened a Facebook account in the name of the EFCC boss and began soliciting for friendship from prominent individuals and all manner of favours using the platform; another group has cloned the telephone numbers of the Acting Chairman.
“The latest group has been making calls to close contacts of the anti-graft Czar and other prominent personalities demanding for huge sums of money using various pretexts.
“Members of the public are hereby warned to disregard any call supposedly from the EFCC Chairman asking for payments to be made either to nominated proxies or accounts as such calls do not emanate from Ibrahim Magu.
“For the avoidance of doubts, the EFCC Chairman, indeed all officials of the agency, do not solicit for nor accept payments/gratification from persons or organisations under any guise.
“Member of the public are enjoined to report anyone claiming to be acting on behalf of the acting chairman or other officials of the EFCC at any of the commission’s offices in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Kano, Gombe, Ibadan and Maiduguri or the nearest police station,” the statement said.
