Police Nab Proprietor, Student Over Alleged N.1.2bn Airtime Fraud

Detectives from the Police Special Fraud Unit (PSFU), Lagos have apprehended a 32-year-old student Timothy Oluwabukola Fashina at Moshood Abiola Polytechnic (MAPOLY) in Abeokuta, Ogun State, and Anthony Imonina Odemerho, the Proprietor of Resign Regal Academy in Benin City, Edo State, on suspicion of being involved in a N1.23 billion airtime fraud.

The suspects were alleged to have fraudulently converted airtime worth N1.227 billion to their personal use.

Their arrests followed a petition to the police by one of the GSM operators in Nigeria following an Audit Report that showed discrepancies between revenue collection accounts and fulfilments.

Based on the petition, a team of detectives from PSFU was detailed to investigate the matter.

Investigation by the detectives revealed that between February and March 2024, Timothy Fashina, connived with a yet-to-be-identified 3rd-Party Web/Application Developers of the GSM Company, who used a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to encrypt their data.

LEADERSHIP understands that the suspects used encryption to conceal their IP addresses and successfully breached the GSM provider’s network by employing authorisation keys to access the firm’s Application Programme Interface (API).

PSFU Public Relations Officer, SP Eyitayo Johnson, who confirmed the arrests, alleged that the suspects, through the unauthorised key, allowed the functionalities of the API to be manipulated by Timothy Fashina.

Johnson said the suspects allegedly repeatedly replicated N100,000 worth of airtime tickets which were genuinely bought on the network to obtain series of multiple airtime fulfilments to the tune of N1.23 billion unto some GSM numbers.

He narrated that afterward, Anthony Imonina, based in Benin City, Edo State, downloaded the Mobile App of the GSM provider from Playstore and signed in with the Phone Number of Timothy Fashina.

“Anthony used it to proceed to the dashboard of the App. Anthony requested an OTP from the GSM Provider which the network automatically sent as SMS to the phone housing/hosting the sim card as at the material time of attempt to log into the App.

“It is at this juncture that Anthony Imonina contacted Timothy Fashina who promptly provided the OTP before the request timed-out. Imonina imputed the OTP and was allowed entry into the GSM Mobile App of Timothy Fashina.

“Having gained access to the App and its features, Anthony Imonina proceeded to convert the fraudulently obtained airtime to data (using “airtime-to-airtime” options of the App) and shared/sold same (using “share-data” option of the App) to 52 innocent subscribers which included individuals and companies.

“The sum of N1.315 billion being payments received for the sold data was traced to the bank accounts of Anthony Imonina who forwarded N1.220 billion to Timothy Fashina, having deducted his commission of N87.5 million from the proceed of the sale of data.

“The proceeds of the fraud include 110 hectares of farmland at Iseyin, Oyo State valued at N40 million, uncompleted building at Oluwo, Abeokuta, Ogun State, valued at N6 million, 2-storey warehouse at Okeyeke, Abeokuta, Ogun State (value yet to be determined), inventory of stocks in warehouse valued at N50 million, towing/truck head valued at N24 million, crypto wallet 21,000 USDT, gift to friends N16 million, two Hiace buses, Toyota Sienna and a Volkswagen bus.

“The legal section of the unit has filed criminal charges against the suspects at the Federal High Court, Ikoyi – Lagos.”

SP Johnson however added that effort is being intensified to apprehend the 3rd-party developers who are members of the syndicate and to identify other assets acquired with the proceeds of fraud.