Nigerian 'scam police' shut down 800 websites

ABUJA, NIGERIA: In what is named 'Project Eagle Claw', Nigeria's anti-corruption police have shut down around 800 scam web sites, and also arrested the members of 18 syndicates, in a drive to curb cyber-crime the country is notorious for.

“The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has shut down no fewer than 800 scam websites and arrested members of 18 syndicates behind the fraudulent scheme in a renewed bid to clap down on Internet fraudsters through an initiative tagged 'project eagle claw',” Chairman of the anti-graft agency, Farida Waziri disclosed in Las Vegas recently.

“There have been 18 arrests of high profile syndicates operating cyber crime organizations,” she said.

She said the EFCC is fine tuning security modalities with Microsoft and upon full deployment, the capacity to take down fraudulent e-mails will increase to 5,000 monthly. Further it is projected that advisory mails to be sent to victims and potential victims will be about 230,000 monthly.

“Project Eagle Claw is an initiative of the EFCC for the smart use of technology in fighting cyber crime. Hitherto the EFCC structure for combating cyber crime revolved around Cyber raids and Investigation of petitions.

Recently many Nigerian national, who were involved in the e-mail fraud, were arrested in India too.