How scammers fleeced Access Bank of N871m in five years

Every year, thousands of Nigerians collectively lose millions of naira to online banking fraud. A suspected fraudster recently arrested by the Nigerian Police revealed that Access Bank and First Bank were the easiest banks to hack.

The 46-year-old suspect Zakarriyah Yahaya, paraded by the Police, alongside thirty-eight other suspects, disclosed how his gang emptied the bank accounts of Nigerians using their missing or stolen SIM cards.

“I used to reset any SIM that receives bank alerts. I do reset it with the victim’s bank account number through bank code from the first to the last number.

“Any bank that we get, we first use it to buy a recharge card. From there, they will send us the alert. From the alert, we will now get the account number,” he said.

He also explained that the most vulnerable banks for his eleven-member gang were Access Bank and First Bank, revealing that the highest amount they had stolen from a single bank account was N800,000.

Yahaya’s story confirms the rising cases of online banking fraud and cyberattacks perpetrated by fraudsters in the country. However, corporate organisations in Nigeria rarely disclose to the public when being attacked.