A hacker, Michael Williams, 28, has been arrested by the Lagos State Police Command for allegedly defrauding a car dealer, Abiogun Adewale, of N28m.
He was said to have paid the sum for a Porsche car through a fake electronic transfer.
The suspect, who was arrested in the Lekki area of Lagos, was paraded at the command headquarters, Ikeja, on Monday by the state Commissioner of Police, Edgal Imohimi.
Imohimi said the police received a petition against the suspect, who he described as a “professional hacker.”
He said, “My office received a complaint that there is a syndicate that buys exotic cars and configures a computer programme that sends a fake payment alert to the seller.
“The seller, upon receiving this alert, verifies the alert either through ATM or through Internet banking and then releases the car to the syndicate.
“In this case, when the car dealer went to his bank for his statement of account, it was discovered that the alert and transfer of N28m to his account was only a fake electronic transfer; the money did not register in his account.
“The modus operandi of this suspect is very interesting because he seems to have a very good mastery of the cyber environment. He also creates a credit card through software known as cyber-ghost 12. When the credit card matures, it is then funded through a hacked Swiss account. Any transaction anybody is doing through this Swiss account, the suspect manipulates it and wires the fund into his contrived credit card.
“The interesting part of this report is that the hacker has the ability to shut down the CCTV system of any organisation here in Nigeria for a period of 67 minutes. That is a window period during which any crime can be committed.”
Imohimi said the case was of importance to financial institutions, adding that Nigerian banks should employ certified hackers to secure their systems from hackers.
He added that further interrogation of the suspect would continue to get information of crimes he could commit through the Internet.
The former medical doctor was also said to have led detectives to Asaba, Delta State, and Owerri, Imo State, where two Camry cars he bought in a similar fashion, were recovered.
The suspect said he was eased out of the medical profession after he discovered a faster way of conducting Caesarean Section.