LAGOS, Nigeria – Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) anti-graft agency said Friday that a court has ordered the seizure of dozens of Lagos properties linked to Chinese nationals suspected of internet fraud.
The agency said a Lagos court had “ordered the interim forfeiture of 73 properties, including 1,596 laptop computers recovered from Chinese involved in cyber-terrorism and internet fraud,” reports AFP.
“They are members of the syndicate of 792 alleged crypto currency investment and romance fraud suspects arrested on December 10, 2024,” it said in a statement.
In December, the agency arrested 792 suspects in a single operation in the affluent Victoria Island area of Nigeria’s commercial hub of Lagos.
At least 192 of the suspects were foreign nationals, 148 of them Chinese, the agency said.
Other items ordered impounded include thousands of mobile phone handsets, hundreds of bunk beds and more than 400 deep freezers.
The EFCC sought a forfeiture order saying the properties were “suspected to be instruments” of computer-related fraud and money laundering.
Africa’s most populous country is saddled with a reputation for internet fraudsters known in local slang as “Yahoo Boys.”
But cybercrime experts warn foreign “cybercrime syndicates” are also exploiting Nigeria’s weakness in cybersecurity systems and setting up their operations centres in the country.
The EFCC says foreign gangs recruited Nigerian accomplices to find victims online through phishing, targeting mostly Americans, Canadians, Mexicans and Europeans.
The FBI on Thursday said it had launched a “global operation to combat financially motivated sextortion schemes operating out of Nigeria.”
Its investigations have “led to the arrests of 22 Nigerian subjects connected to financially motivated sextortion schemes,” it said in a statement.
