Guardian
News
40 Nigerians
Arrested in U.S Over Alleged N1.7Billion Credit Card Scam
May
16, 2009 -- As the authorities in New York City, United States
engaged in what seems a mass arrest of Nigerians allegedly
involved in a series of financial and identity crimes earlier
this week, the Federal Government through the New York Consulate
is protesting the decision to name the nationalities of the
alleged culprits only when it is about Nigerians.
Already, no fewer than
40 Nigerians based in New York metropolitan area are among
45 people arrested on Thursday in what New York City authorities
called the dismantling of an "international credit card and
identity fraud ring'.
A statement from the
District Attorney's office for Queens County (under New York
City) late on Thursday said in the last one year alone, this
group of Nigerians and their American collaborators have engaged
in fraud estimated at $12 million (N1.7billion).
About 22 of the over
40 alleged criminals have already been arraigned at a New
York Supreme Court.
However, the Federal
Government has responded through the Consul General at the
Nigerian Consulate in New York , Mr. Ibrahim Auwalu who said
New York authorities are yet to alert the Nigerian Embassy
about the developments. He added that once the Nigerian Embassy
is alerted and informed by the New York authorities, the embassy
will seek to have access to the detained Nigerians and "confirm
their bonafides."
Auwalu said if they
were indeed Nigerians, the embassy would indeed visit them
in detention, adding: "We owe them that responsibility as
Nigerians".
But the New York authorities
in an investigation involving city lawyers, cops and detectives
from New York Police Department and other agencies, disclosed
that nearly "four dozen individuals" have been charged after
a 21-month investigation, where counterfeit credit cards were
used to steal money.
Queens District Attorney,
Richard A. Brown, joined by Police Commissioner, Raymond W.
Kelly, on Thursday announced the indictment and busting of
45 people in the international forged credit card and identity
theft ring based in the New York metropolitan area "with roots
in Nigeria."
Auwalu wondered why
so much is being made of the involvement of Nigerians when
Americans and people from other parts of the world are also
indicted.
He said "it is only
when Nigerians are involved that we hear about the nationalities
of the alleged culprits", asking why the origin of Bernie
Maddoff who stole over $50billion of other people's money,
was never mentioned.
Defending Nigeria's
name in all of this, Auwalu observed that it has already been
established that Nigerians in the US are the most educated
immigrant group and even the most educated of all ethnic groups
in America. However, he lamented that people don't focus on
this.
He added: "What bothers
me is that when others commit crimes in this country, we don't
hear their nationalities, but they keep mentioning Nigerians.
What they don't say about us is that we have tens of thousands
of Nigerian professionals in the medical profession doing
important live-saving work here."
Detailing the operation
of the crime rings, however, District Attorney and the New
York Police Commissioner said they comprise of three separate
identity theft and forged credit card groups that employ multiple
cells that are "alleged to have been responsible for stealing
the credit cards and personal credit information of thousands
of American and Canadian consumers, costing these individuals,
as well as financial institutions and retail businesses, more
than $12 million in losses over the past year alone."
District Attorney Brown
said: "In terms of just the sheer number of people indicted
- this is one of the largest identity theft networks uncovered
in recent history and is just possibly the tip of a much larger
global credit card trafficking operation."
He added that "technological
advances have made it increasingly easier to carry out identity
theft and fraud - two of the fastest growing crimes in the
US and which afflicts millions of victims and costs billions
of dollars in losses to consumers, businesses and financial
institutions."
Brown noted that as
part of the investigation, court-authorized search warrants
were executed earlier in the week in New York at 17 locations
and resulted in the recovery of forged credit cards, credit
reports, machines used to stamp credit card account information
onto cards and nearly $100,000 in cash.
According to the statement,
some of the defendants are alleged to have activated consumers'
credit cards by utilizing "Spoof Cards" which allow a caller
to disguise the telephone number they're calling from and
even their voice and gender.
"From a law enforcement
perspective, such cards are anything but a spoof. They are
virtually untraceable and can be used by identity thieves
and hackers to pose as government and financial entities as
a means to unscrupulously obtain personal information from
unsuspecting consumers and also by defendants in domestic
violence cases to harass their victims, " Brown said.
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