Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC broke syndicate of fraudsters specializing in hotel review job scam, targeting mostly United Kingdom victims.
They arrested 105 suspects comprising four Chinese and 101 Nigerians at Naka Hall Plaza in Abutu Garba Street, Gudu, Abuja. 100 compact Workstations were recovered from the suspects.
How the Fraud Works
Hotel Review Job Scam is a globally- entrenched internet-related fraud that is newly appearing on the Nigerian space. The modus operandi involves Chinese who usually recruit local and computer-savvy Nigerians as Customer Service Representatives.
The Representatives are made to work on a prepared template of criminality online. They are given identities and names usually foreign, through which they chat with expatriates. The crime involves making false representation to victims to win their trust to engage in hotel ratings with promises of $5 for every hotel that is reviewed. As the victims get paid, they are encouraged to review more hotels and the payment is increased to $10 per rating. After a long while, the victim is encouraged to make bookings in any of the rated hotels for as much as $500 and that the company would pay back with chunky interest into a crypto wallet bearing their names. After making bookings, the victim would not be able to open the wallet and his or her money is lost.
The fraud is an intricate mechanism of defrauding foreigners and it is targeted at victims in Europe and other parts of the world.
