Suspected members of a transnational fraud syndicate arrested by personnel of the Ogun State Police Command have claimed that their activities in Nigeria were coordinated by a Malaysian national who operated entirely online.
They claimed that all members of the network worked under the directive of the Malaysian national, whom none of them had met physically.
The spokesperson for the command, Oluseyi Babaseyi, had in a statement on Monday stated that the suspects, arrested in the Agbado area of Ifo Local Government Area of Ogun State, were allegedly involved in a networking scheme known as “Ignite,” through which foreign nationals were lured into the country with promises of wealth and business opportunities.
In a confessional statement obtained on Friday, one of the leaders of the group, 34-year-old Zadariah Sawadogo from Burkina Faso, said he came to Nigeria in 2023 in search of better opportunities before he was introduced to the Ignite networking scheme by a friend.
“We took orders from Malaysia. Our boss is a Malaysian national, and I have never met him before. We only communicate on the internet. I was born in Burkina Faso, but I grew up in Ivory Coast. When I came to Nigeria, my friend Sebasien told me about Ignite Networking. He said I would make a lot of money from the business, but before I was arrested, I had only received $90,” he said.
He explained that participants were expected to recruit new members and purchase products allegedly supplied by the Malaysian-based operator.
“When Sebasien introduced me to Ignite Networking, he told me I would get products from our boss in Malaysia and earn money based on the number of people I referred to the business,” he added.
The suspect claimed that after buying land in Ivory Coast with the intention of building a house, he persuaded his father to sell it and send him the proceeds to invest in the business. Sawadogo lamented that the products never arrived.
“My father sold the land for 1.6 million CFA Franc and sent the money to me in Nigeria. I rented the apartment where we were arrested for N500,000 and used the remaining money to order Ignite products. Till the moment we were arrested, my product had not arrived from Malaysia. Our boss kept saying more people needed to pay before the products could be shipped together. I only received $90 as a referral bonus,” he added.
Another member of the group, a Togolese artist identified as Kuneji Ezekiel, described himself as a victim of the scheme. He said he joined the network after a friend promised that he would become wealthy.
“I paid 400,000 CFA Franc for my product, but I never received anything before the police arrested us. There were about 50 of us living in the apartment. It was the leaders who communicated with the boss in Malaysia and passed instructions to the rest of us,” he said.
Babaseyi warned residents against falling victim to fraudulent networking schemes and reiterated the command’s commitment to ridding the state of criminal elements. He stated that preliminary investigations showed that some of those arrested were victims who had been recruited into the scheme, and they have been transferred to the Nigerian Immigration Service for further profiling and necessary action.
