COVID-19 : Two Nigerian arrested for defrauding a German company of 14.7 million euros (N6.6b)

The Cybercrime Unit of the Nigeria Police Force, INTERPOL, Abuja, has arrested two suspects for their involvement in a major multi-million Euro scam touching on the procurement of COVID-19 Personal Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

The suspects, Babatunde Adesanya a.k.a Teddy, 50, who is a Master degree holder in Cell Biology and Akinpelu Hassan Abass, 41, the M.D Musterpoint Investment Nig. Ltd, are members of a sophisticated transnational criminal network.

The arrest of the suspects was sequel to a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), received by the Bureau from the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice conveying a request from the German Government for investigations into a fraudulent transaction on the procurement of COVID-19 Personal Protective Equipment linked to a Nigerian-based Bank Account.

Discrete investigations by INTERPOL Nigeria revealed that the suspects and their Holland-based cohorts, one Eduardus Boomstra and Geradius Maulder specialized in identity theft, cyber-stalking, cloning of corporate websites amongst other cyber mischiefs to defraud unsuspecting members of the public across the world.

In this instance, the suspects fraudulently obtained from Mr Freiherr Fredrick Von Hahn the sum of 1.5m Euro (N677m) and another 880,000 Euro (N397m) as advanced payment for the supply of COVID-19 PPEs valued at 14.7million Euros (N6.6b).

The culprits were found out when a case of fraud was reported to the Holland police by Mr Freiherr Fredrick Von Hahn , which led to their arrest and investigations extended to Nigeria .Interpol discovered that Babatunde Adesanya who received 498,000 euros (N224m) through his London bank’s account