The long arms of the law has caught up with another United States Federal Bureau of Investigations suspect indicted for alleged involvement in internet fraud.
The Ilorin Zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, announced the arrest of the 38-year-old Nigerian, Festus Akinyemi Abiona, Monday, whom it claimed had been on the wanted list for the past eight months over alleged fraud case before luck ran against him and was finally arrested in his hideout.
The agency said Akinyemi was fished out Wednesday February 6,2020, at his duplex residence in Arepo, Ogun state despite refusing to step out of his house since he got wind of the EFCC/FBI case for past five months to avoid arrest, but as the slogan of the EFCC says, “wherever you are,we will get you.”
In the petition dated July 10, 2019, the FBI alleged that the suspect was involved in business email compromises (BEC)and other computer enabled fraud.
“In May 2016, the FBI received information that an actor or actors, bypassed online security to steal money from retirement accounts held by an insurance company for public workers in the United states, which resulted in the loss of approximately 2.5 million dollars,” the petition stated.
Investigation into the case by the EFCC revealed that the person behind the business email compromise, is Festus Akinyemi Abiona and his syndicate members. Millions of naira have been traced to his bank accounts and some of the emails used in perpetrating the fraud have been taken over from the suspect.
” The accounts contain numerous communications between Abiona and other criminals conspirators seeking to commit business email compromises, (BEC), Tax Refund fraud, and other computer enabled fraud,” the petition further informed.
The suspect according to the EFCC,on sighting the operatives of the anti-graft agency,flushed all his Sim cards into the toilet and destroyed all his Automated Teller machines cards (ATMs) in order to destroy evidence, and also refused to make statements since his arrest.
