Though difficult to unearth, information Cameroon Tribune gathered shows that for some cyber criminals to succeed, they must collaborate. Some of them have deeply rooted networks to enable them land big « jobs ». S. Mbom, a friend to alleged cyber criminals told CT how some of his friends liaise to propose fraudulent child adoption deals in exchange for huge sums.He explained how they collaborate to rob clients – most often in the Western World – through some money transfer agencies and banks where their accomplices neither enter the transactions into official
records nor ask for their identification papers. He said it just suffices for them to tell the cashier that they are expecting money from a victim and the money will be cashed.
he recounted how an incident in Bamenda where two men presented the same identification papers in a money transfer agency to cash money from the same sender. He said one of the recipients presented an ID card while the other had a driving licence; bearing the same name as that on the ID card. S.Mbom underscored that in such cases, one of the recipients is a cyber criminal.
Most scammers who work in synergy have a platter of devices. They create many email acounts and can pass for security men, legal experts, government officials or business partners, in a bid to succeed in their deals. Some of them, he said, even go as far as installing software in cyber cafés with the complicity of operators to monitor mails of clients; especially those involving the movement of money. With the software, the accounts of clients who use the computer are being under check in a machine right at home.
Internet users therefore need to be aware of the dangers of carrying out monetary transactions online. For some scammers it only suffices to know the name of the sender and they will cash the money in complicity with their partners who work with money transfer agencies.
Though some cyber criminals network to land juicy deals, others say the coming of simple Internet kits has enabled many scammers to work from home, instead of spending endless hours in cyber cafés searching for potential victims. Though they create many email addresses to cover their tracks, this can mostly be possible with the complicity of money transfer staff, concluded our source.
