Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency has arrested 792 people in a raid on a building in the country’s largest city — which it suspects was a hub for a massive crypto romance scam operation.
The suspects, arrested at the building on Dec. 10 in Lagos, included 148 Chinese and 40 Filipino nationals, an Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) spokesperson told Reuters on Dec. 16.
“Nigerian accomplices were recruited by the foreign kingpins to prospect for victims online through phishing, targeting mostly Americans, Canadians, Mexicans and several others from European countries,” the EFCC spokesperson said.
“Once the Nigerians are able to win the confidence of would-be victims, the foreigners would take over the actual task of defrauding the victims,” they added.
The EFCC said the suspects would contact victims over social media with the aim of seducing them or offering bogus crypto investment schemes and then pressuring them to transfer money — a type of scam known as pig butchering.
Ken Gamble, co-founder of the cybercrime investigative firm IFW Global, which has worked with the EFCC, told Cointelegraph that Chinese crime groups are expanding into Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe after setting up larger similar schemes in Southeast Asia.
“Chinese organized crime groups expanding their operations into countries that have weaker cybersecurity enforcement frameworks,” Gamble explained.
”The Chinese bring the technology, infrastructure and financing, which allows the local Nigerian scam syndicates to enhance their operations.”
Gamble said the alleged Lagos-based scheme was smaller than others, with Chinese ringleaders typically aiming to employ around 1,000 people in the scheme.
Some in Myanmar had up to 5,000 people working on the scam scheme, he said.
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Such workers, recruited through job ads, would be paid “better than usual” compared to the average income in their country, Gamble explained.
Nigerians, for example, could be paid up to $500 monthly — ten times more than the country’s minimum wage — plus a bonus depending on how many successful scams are pulled off.
The EFCC spokesperson said the agency was collaborating with international partners and would be looking at whether the alleged scheme was linked to organized crime.
In August, blockchain security firm Chainalysis said that pig butchering scams were on the rise this year as cybercriminals are favoring the quicker style of schemes over long-burning Ponzi schemes.
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