Nigeria ranks 16th in FBI’s global worst affected by internet crimes in 2020

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has ranked Nigeria 16th among the countries most stricken by internet crime within the world in 2020.

The IC3 since its establishment in 2000 has received a total of 5,679,259 complaints and a mean of 440, 000 complaints per annum. it has recorded a total of 2,211,396 within the last 5years.

Excluding the united states, at the top of the list of the foremost affected country, is the united kingdom followed by Canada, India, Greece and Australia.

South Africa is the only other African nation among the highest 20, ranking sixth with 1,754 complaints.
The report noted that one of the foremost prevalent schemes seen during the pandemic has been government impersonators.

“Criminals are reaching bent people through social media, emails, or phone calls pretending to be from the government,” the report said.

“They plan to gather personal information or illicit money through charades or threats.”
Other countries that ranked better than Nigeria are Pakistan, China, Columbia, and Hong Kong.

The report further stated that fraudsters took advantage of the year 2020 due to the pandemic. the highest five crimes reported by victims in 2020 were phishing scams, personal data breach, non-payment/non-delivery scams, fraud and extortion.

The report noted that victims lost the foremost money to business email compromise scams, romance and confidence schemes, and investment fraud.

Victims of such scams globally lost $4.2 billion in 2020, compared to $3.5 billion lost in 2019.

Regardless of the low complaints from Nigeria, some Nigerians were arrested in reference to major internet fraud outside the country.

Nigerian entrepreneur Obinwanne Okeke has been jailed for 10 years by a US court for masterminding an $11 million cyber fraud on a British company. Okeke was arrested by the FBI at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, in August 2019, when he was about to board a flight to Nigeria during a visit to the US.

Another Nigerian Instagram celebrity, Ramon Olorunwa Abbas a.k.a. “Ray Hushpuppi” was also arrested during a Dubai hotel in June 2020.
He is facing criminal charges alleging he conspired to launder many many dollars from business email compromise (BEC) frauds and other scams.

Hushpuppi and co-conspirators allegedly “tricked one among the law firm’s paralegals into wiring money intended for the client’s property refinancing to a checking account that was controlled by Abbas and also the co-conspirators,” US Department of Justice said.

DOJ said schemes also targeted a U.S. law firm, an overseas bank, and an English Premier League soccer club.
It revealed that Hushpuppi also helped launder funds from a heist masterminded by North Korean criminals.