Scammers confess to stealing over N10m from JAMB

Over a dozen fraudsters have gained access to an intranet site of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and altered profiles of the board’s ad hoc staff, diverting over N10 million meant for their allowances, its Registrar, Prof Ishaq Oloyede, has disclosed. 

Prof. Oloyede said the board uncovered the fraud after a careful investigation, which led to the arrest of one Sahabi Zubairu from Takum in Taraba State, and several others.

Professor Oloyede said government policy requires that monies meant for ad hoc staff are paid directly into the accounts of the beneficiaries, a situation that gave room for this kind of challenge the board was facing.

He, however, decried the failure of the account department to detect the fraud by cross-checking the names on the accounts to ensure that they tallied with those listed on the website or owners of the codes.

The JAMB boss who noted that ad hoc staff of the board has since been paid, however, assured that the stolen money will be recovered, as he vowed to hand perpetrators of the crime over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for further investigation and prosecution.

On how the fraudsters successfully gained access to the profiles of the ad hoc staff, he explained that the fraudsters used key logger, software that allows access to the profile of anyone who has logged in using a public cybercafé even after the person has logged out and gone.

He clarified that the site was not for application to become JAMB ad hoc staff, but for JAMB ad hoc staff to supply their account details and names for payment of their allowances.

Professor Oloyede said Zubairu deleted the names of the original ad hoc staff and their telephone numbers and substituted them with his, adding that those affected include code number 313 and 312, among others.

At least ten of the scammers paraded by JAMB before newsmen in Bwari, Abuja, admitted to the crime and said they were lured into it by Zubairu.

The alleged fraud syndicate ploughed into the site hosting the data of all JAMB ad hoc staff and changed their account details and phone numbers, diverting several million meant for the payment of their allowances.

While narrating how he carried out the crime, the alleged kingpin, Zubairu, said a friend of his, known as Samuel Tanko, who is now at large, introduced him to the website and supplied him with a code to apply as a JAMB ad hoc staff when they met at Saltee Cybercafé in Takum where he resides.

He however noted that what he did was not an application but a successful alteration of the account details and phone numbers of the original owners of the code listed on the site, who were posted across the country by JAMB.