Four Nigerian students arrested for allegedly hacking banks in Philippines

Philippines’ National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has arrested four Nigerian in Municipal City for alleged involvement in the hacking stealing of funds from banks.

NBI Cybercrime Division chief Vic Lorenzo said the Nigerians were part of an international syndicate who hack banking systems, taking advantage of the flaws in their systems.

The NBI said the Nigerians violated the Access Device Law, Anti-Cyber-crime law and falsification of public documents.

Philippines-based ABS-CBN News said fraudulent transactions were traced after they hacked a system of one Philippine bank, where at least P100 million were transferred and diverted into a different account.

“The international syndicate is complicated.. to the point that they study the system’s flaws. Once they see a weakness, they will take advantage of that,” Lorenzo said.

One of the suspects’ Filipino girlfriend, NBI said, admitted to having used her account to deposit and withdraw money amounting to at least P2 million, which was supposedly for tuition.

Blank ATM cards and bank receipts were confiscated from the suspects after their arrest.

The Nigerians, however, denied the fraudulent allegations, claiming that they were in the Philippines to study and that they know nothing about the hacking incident.

One of the suspects said the funds withdrawn were donations from a Nigerian student community for their education.