Police Arrest First Class Student, Graduates, Two Undergraduates Final Student Over OPEC Fraud

The Police Special Fraud Unit, PSFU, has smashed a syndicate which specialises in designing multinational organisations’ websites to defraud unsuspecting members of the public, particularly applicants, and arrested six members, Vanguard reports.

Among the suspects are a first class honours graduate and two final year students of the Federal University of Technology Akure, FUTA.

The suspects’ modus oparadi, according to the unit, include using logos of multinational companies to place online advertisements for jobs and scholarships and demanding application fee from interested individuals.

Luck ran out for the suspects after the unit received a petition from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, last August, that a website designed as ‘OFID Scholarship Website’ (OPEC Fund for International Development for World Student Aid Scholarship) with OFID name and logo is being used to defraud unsuspecting Nigerian applicants.

The police however swung into action and one of them was arrested which later led to the arrest of 5 others.

Investigation, according to the Commissioner of Police in-charge of the unit, Umar Idris, was on-going, informing that the suspects would soon be charged to court.