Nigerian, Kenyan bag 9-yrs jail term for scamming students N373m

Two African-Britons, Messrs Damola Clement Olatunji, and Amos Njoroge Mwangi, have been sentenced to a total of Nine years and Nine months cumulatively, for breaking into a students’ loan scheme, scamming unsuspecting students to the tune of £1.5 million, about N373 million.

One of them, a Nigerian Mr. Damola Clement Olatunji, 37, was handed down a jail term of six and half years, while Kenyan Mr. Amos Njoroge Mwangi, 26, got three years and three months, totaling Nine years and Nine months by a Southwark Crown Court in London.

Although London Police is yet to confirm to the extent both men were collaborating in this phishing crime, both were discovered during investigations to have created bogus loan website and asking students to update their data, from where they collated the password and login details.

Experts described Phishing as an attempt to acquire information indirectly, such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

TechWorld reports that Police found that Mwangi’s PC contained a number of programs that allowed him to design and control phishing emails and their associated websites.  

According to TechWorld reports, Police discovered Olatunji’s computer had evidence of collecting student bank logins from not less than 1,300 victims, thus connecting him to £304,000, about N75,392,000m, of the criminal proceeds and a further £162,000, about N40,176,000m of the fraud.

Additionally, Olatunji was discovered to have another sting of operation that earned him £75,000 fraudulently from Halifax bank.

Reacting, a concerned observer, Mr. Robert W. lamented that what amazed him about the whole scam was that college students supposed versed in computer usage, knew phishing emails are like this, responded to the scam and even ahead to download a Trojan or other malicious software from an unknown sender without verifying it was sent by the real sender first. He advised that they should have easily gone to the appropriate website first and logged in directly, then inquired about it with officials.

Both men began serving their sentences since July 6, 2012.

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