Suspected Nigerian criminals unarmed but lethal exploiting information technologies stole some $93 million from unsuspecting victims around the world in 2008 according to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3),) report for 2008.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that the report is a damning indictment of the country’s internet crime fight and a clear signal she is yet to shed the toga as a base for criminals exploiting the reach of the Internet.
The report released last week rated Nigeria as the country most involved in internet crime in Africa and the third in the world with 7.5 per cent of the complaints received by the centre in 2008.
Out of the 275,284 complaints received in 2008, about 20,646 were from Nigerian scammers who sold bag of lies laced with promises of none existent bountiful returns.
The country was singled out of all the countries in the world to tag an internet fraud type called ‘Nigeria letter fraud'.
‘Nigeria letter fraud' is said to be responsible for 5.2% per cent of the total reported internet fraud loss recorded in 2008 and $1,650 as the average loss per complainant.
South Africa and Ghana came sixth and seventh in the world respectively
The figures reported by IC3 for the period was the highest ever since 2004 and underscored the growing sophistication of the fraudsters.
IC3 is a partnership between the United States Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C).
Don Brackman, director NW3C stated, “The report demonstrates that in a technology driven global market, the inability of consumers to distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent activities poses a serious threat to our economy. The financial losses that result have an impact on each and every one of us.”
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