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By Quadri Yahya
An unknown number of Nigerians received a scam email message purportedly from the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele.
The once-powerful ex-CBN chief, Emefiele was first suspended by President Bola Tinubu before the Department of States Security detained him “for some investigative reasons” in June last year. He is now facing a 20-count amended charge bordering on alleged criminal breach of trust, forgery, conspiracy to commit forgery, procurement fraud and conspiracy to commit a felony.
Emefiele was appointed as CBN in 2014 by then-President Goodluck Jonathan, and reappointed by Muhammadu Buhari in 2019.
The viral email in false Emefiele’s signatory seeks to find an accomplice to “equally” slash the sum of “US$18,000,000.00” once the email recipient agrees to allow “Mr. Godwin Emefiele” convert the funds into “a domiciliary account” with the receiver as a beneficiary.
It is observed that the email sender included all the parties involved in the court case of the embattled former CBN boss, an indication that the scammer conducted some research to add some convincing details.
The Phishing Email
In phishing, an Internet fraudster seeks to acquire a user’s credentials by deception. It includes theft of passwords, credit card numbers, bank account details and other confidential information. This type of fraud has increasingly been detected in Nigeria: in Q3 2023, phishing attack detection increased by 12 per cent compared to Q2, according to a cybersecurity firm Kaspersky report.
As common with email scams, the tone of the email is persuasive and moderately formal, presented as a “confidential business proposal”.
Oddly, the scammer included “Mr. Emefiele’s” age, which tallies with the unverified age of the ex-CBN governor found on various online platforms.
The email is poorly structured and filled with grammatical errors, which a Harvard-trained Emefiele would not have committed.
A screenshot of the mail going viral on WhatsApp statuses reads:
“Dear Friend,
“My name is Mr. Godwin Emefiele, 62 years age and the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. As you might have heard or read from any international news, I am presently incarcerated by the Department of States Security (DSS) and waiting trials for series of allegation by the Nigeria current government led by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu
“I have a very confidential business proposal for you and it has to do with the US$ 18,000,000.00 that I deposited in my domiciliary account with one of the prestigious international banks abroad.
“As the DSS investigation deepens, I want the above mentioned amount to be converted to your name as the new beneficiary, so that it will NOT be traced to my name. I am ready to share the fund with you equally after it has been successfully secured by you.
“Kindly get back to me for more details and the way forward if you are interested.
Regards,
Mr. Godwin Emefiele.”
A cybersecurity professional stated that it is apparently phishing mail, yet some people would still fall for it.
Conclusion
While the impact of this phishing exploit on Nigerians with mobile access cannot be measured, the mention of embattled Emefiele’s name in the email can have an effect on unsuspecting members of the public.
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