From January to December 15 in the states of Sokoto, Kebbi, and Zamfara, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was successful in getting 65 financial fraudsters found guilty in court.This was revealed to reporters by Mr. Aliyu Yunusa, the zonal commander of Sokoto, during the commission's end-of-year celebration of its accomplishments on Friday in Sokoto.
According to Yunusa, the zonal command has achieved more convictions than it had set a goal of 50. She credited staff commitment, assistance from sister organizations, Community Based Organizations (CBOs), and individual efforts for the result.
He emphasized that the most common cases that were reported involved impersonations that involved using another person's National Identity Number (NIM) as a stand-in, receiving stolen money, cloning ATM cards to withdraw money on behalf of third parties, and defrauding people under false pretenses.
"The most significant reason for celebration is that we stopped multiple crimes, found multiple frauds, and recovered money from scammers within the year." Yunusa stated that the purpose of the gathering was to uplift the staff by highlighting the successes and difficulties with the intention of improving in the upcoming year.
He claims that because con artists are using more sophisticated methods to deceive individuals, the zonal office is having trouble finding enough workers and educating them on specialized cybercrimes.
"More sophistication is required because, when an incident occurs, we examine it with a forensic eye to close any gaps and expedite investigations," the commander continued.
He reaffirmed that the commission would keep collaborating to combat crimes at all levels with community development clubs, NYSC, zero corruption tolerance groups in schools, and other CBOs.
He thanked journalists for their exceptional support of the command and gave them instructions to further up their efforts to raise public awareness of frauds in all their forms and EFCC initiatives in order to put an end to all illegal financial transactions.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), community organizations and heads of federal and state agencies were present at the occasion.