The Department of State Service has apprehended some serving and retired civil servants who it said were planning to steal N4.5bn from the Treasury Single Account.
It said that the plan of the gang was was to hack the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System domiciled in the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation and steal the money.
This information was contained in a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday by Mr. Tony Opuiyo.
He said this achievement recorded by the Service was what he described as “the modest success of the Service in its support to the Federal Government to achieve its desired economic objectives and stability may also be noted.”
To this effect, he added, “the DSS have arrested a group of fraudsters who had concluded plans to hack the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System domiciled in the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation in order to steal N4.5b from the Treasury Single Account.”
He said that the gang was led by one Sunny Okoh, who he described as a hacker who worked in collaboration with the trio of Uwem Ekpo, a Chief Program Analyst in the OAGF, Maxwell Ekene, a retired security operative and Dozie Egwu, who he alleged, was living in Malaysia but is at large.
Opuiyo said that the suspected fraudsters intended to use a software they had sourced and codes released to them by Ekpo to hack government accounts in the Central Bank of Nigeria and defraud the government of the huge sum.
He said if the action had succeeded, it would have created credibility problem for the government and the policy.
The statement said, “It is instructive to note that a credibility problem would have arisen over the TSA policy if these hackers had succeeded in their plan and thus lend credence to the critics of the policy that it ought not to have been introduced and implemented.”
He added that the suspects had been handed over to the Economic and Financial Crime Commission for further investigations and prosecution.
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