A 20-year-old Nigerian has been arrested at the Lagos airport for allegedly defrauding multiple victims of over one billion naira in the United States of America (U.S.)

The suspect was apprehended by operatives of the Anti-Fraud Unit of the Airport Police Command, while attempting to board a flight out of Lagos State, the command’ spokesperson, ASP Mohammed Adeola, confirmed this in a statement on Tuesday in Lagos.

Adeola said the arrest of the suspect followed months of intelligence-led surveillance and monitoring based on credible information linking the suspect to several transnational fraud schemes.

According to the statement, the suspect, who previously resided in Calabar, relocated to Lagos State on Feb. 23, 2024, from where he coordinated and executed multiple fraudulent operations targeting victims in the U.S.

He listed the fraud committed by the suspect to include deceiving a 47-year-old female victim in the US, into transferring one million dollars under the guise of purchasing property in Florida for an orphanage in 2024.

Adeola said the victim obtained through a cryptocurrency scheme known as “BullRun 2.0,” formerly called “4 Way Mirror Money.

The Lagos Airport Police spokesperson said that further investigations revealed that the suspect also defrauded another 70-year-old female victim in the US of 18,000 dollars

(N26 million).

Adeola said the suspect perpetrated the fraud through the purchase of gift cards, high-end mobile devices, and computer equipment, which were shipped to Nigeria at the suspect’s direction.

The suspect, police said also posed as a 60-year-old orthopedic surgeon working with the United Nations in Nigeria, claiming that the devices were needed to maintain secure communications with the victim.

The Police listed items recovered in connection with the case include a MacBook Pro 14-inch, an iPhone 17 Pro Max, two Google Pixel 10 Pro XL devices, and one Google Pixel 10 Pro, with a combined estimated value of N8,141,367, ” he said.

He said that the Command’s Commissioner of Police, Mrs Olufunke Ogunbode, reaffirmed the command’s commitment to blocking criminals from using airports as escape routes through intelligence-driven operations.

The image maker said that the Command would continue to deploy intelligence- driven operations to detect, disrupt, and dismantle criminal networks operating within and around Nigeria’s aviation ecosystem.

According to him, the suspect and his casefile have been transferred to the Nigeria Police Force Special Fraud Unit (NPF-SFU) for further investigation.

He said that he will be arraigned afterwards.

(NAN)