The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has cracked down on a gang of fraudsters who specialized in exploiting personal data of foreign-based Nigerians to defraud their friends and relations back home.

Four of the gang-members, Oladipupo Adebayo, Bimbo Bilewu, Ibrahim Odunayo and Oyeleye Oluwatosi – are currently in the EFCC custody while others are still at large.

The Commission had launched a manhunt on the suspects after receiving a petition from one Prof Godwin Ekhaguere, a professor of Mathematics, who retired from the University of Ibadan.

He alleged in the petition that the gang defrauded him of sums totalling N565,500 (Five Hundred and Sixty-Five Thousand, Five Hundred Naira) adding that the fraudsters made him to part with MTN recharge vouchers worth N36,000 (Thirty-Six Thousand Naira) in the deal.

It was in the course of investigating the allegations that the Commission arrested Bilewu at an ATM point where he went to cash the money sent to him by one Pastor Osuji.

The suspects have owned up to the allegations against them, and are now helping the Commission in further investigations into crimes of similar nature.