Friends of former federal lawmaker, Tokunbo Afikuyomi on Saturday, lost millions of naira to fraudsters who had earlier hacked the WhatsApp number of the Lagos politician.
Having succeeded in taking control of the use of the app, the criminal elements, according to Afikuyomi, sent messages to his contacts, soliciting financial help on his behalf.
Although some of the friends were clever enough to alert him; others heeded the call for help by transferring various amounts of money to the account numbers provided by the criminal gang.
Recounting his ordeal in a statement sent to The PUNCH on Sunday, the ex-lawmaker said, “Yesterday morning (January 13), some scammers hacked my phone line and temporarily seized control of my WhatsApp messages. They then sent fraudulent messages to some of my contacts requesting that they transfer some money on my behalf.
“Many of my friends quickly called me up on the regular phone while some others spoke with my aides to alert me.
However, unfortunately, a few others did not suspect that anything was wrong. They innocently complied with the fake request and made transfers of millions of naira to the various account numbers in different banks supplied by the scammers.”
