Emmanuel Ifedi and Peter Okechukwu
Peter Okechukwu Onyema, 32, and Emmanuel Ifedi, 31, were charged with “unauthorized access or interception of electronic record without authority”.
The Director General of the Criminal Investigation Department, COP Prosper Agblor, told DAILY GUIDE the two accused persons hacked into the electroniccommunication between the aforementioned entities and managed to have some $13,978, meant for payment to CATAL, for supplies ordered by GAF for its peacekeepers, transferred into a private account owned by Okechukwu.
A representative of CATAL, an international organization which is into homeappliance supply to Ghanaian peacekeeping troops on various missions across the world, reported the incident to the Documentation and Visa Fraud Section (DVS) of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) headquarters.
Investigation into the matter led to the arrest of the two Nigerians based in Accra.
COP Agblor said recently CATAL was contracted by UNIFIL GHANBATT 76 for the supply of home appliances to its peacekeeping troops in Lebanon.
The two organizations had been corresponding via the internet over the order.
However, unknown to them, their e-mail accounts had been hacked by Ifedi and Okechukwu who intercepted all corresponding e-mails from both ends and replied
them as if they were the rightful receivers of the e-mails. The two used the identity of CATAL and sent an e-mail to the military instructing them to pay a cash amount of $13,978 into an account at one of the banks in the country, as cost of the said supplies.
them as if they were the rightful receivers of the e-mails. The two used the identity of CATAL and sent an e-mail to the military instructing them to pay a cash amount of $13,978 into an account at one of the banks in the country, as cost of the said supplies.
The military did just that by transferring the amount into the said account.
Luck however eluded the two when both entities soon realized the hack and lodged a complaint with the police.
Quickly the activities of the two were placed under surveillance.
Peter Okechukwu Onyema, who owned the said account, was arrested on Monday, November 2012, when he called at the bank to cash the money.
Upon interrogation, he mentioned Emmanuel Ifedi as the master brain behind the hacking.
The police were still investigating their activities as they feared others might have fallen prey to their nefarious operations.
The CID boss used the opportunity to advise the public to be vigilant about the e-mail addresses they corresponded with before replying such messages, as hackers mostly used very similar characters to convince recipients into believing they were corresponding with original persons they had written to.
Source Daily Guide Ghana
