Headline

Three UK-based Nigerians Defraud Vodafone, Other Firms Of £429,304

Published

1 year ago

March 15, 2024

Three Nigerians and one other person residing in the United Kingdom have been jailed by Portsmouth Crown Court for a combined total of 11 years after duping Vodafone, EE, O2 and Carphone Warehouse of £429,304.

According to a UK digital newspaper, The News, the four of them – Oluwadamilola Bolaji, Taofeeq Balogun, Taiwo Agusto and Carriba Johnson were guilty of the offences after confessions in court.

Their offences were revealed after a Hampshire resident told the police that between Friday 14 February 2020 and Wednesday 19 February 2020, four mobile phone accounts had been opened up in his name without his permission or knowledge.

It was reported that EE contracts had been taken out in the Fareham and Waterlooville Carphone Warehouse stores and phones were also taken out in O2 and Vodafone stores.

Hampshire police then contacted EE who discovered the resident’s details had been manipulated for a series of frauds.

Operation Waterspout was set up as a Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary investigation into the Organised Crime Group who were involved in high value commercial fraud.

The fraudsters used stolen personal details of existing customers from all over England and Wales to take out new phone contracts and obtain expensive mobile phones and similar items such as Apple Watches and iPads.

According to the court, the sentences handed them were as follows: Bolaji, 32, of Black Eagle Drive in Gravesend, Kent, admitted his part in the fraud conspiracy to the value of £145,000, and was jailed for six years and three months.

Also, Balogun, 30, of no fixed address in Basingstoke admitted his part in the fraud conspiracy to the value of £25,000. He has been jailed for three years.

In the same manner, Agusto, 43, of Osbourne Road in Dartford, Kent admitted his part in the fraud conspiracy to the value of £3,000. He has been jailed for one year and nine months.

Lastly, Johnson, 31, of Nelson Square in Southwark, London also admitted her part in the fraud conspiracy to the value of £2,500. She has been given a suspended sentence of 24 months imprisonment, the News said.

The investigation including a search of the group’s homes where many forged documents were seized including fake passports, bankcards, bank statements, utility bills and stolen driving licences was launched by the authorities.

Many of the items were used in the fraud to receive mobile phones connecting by cell site data, sharing SIMS going into handsets, and also by bank transactions between themselves.176 phone company customers had their details used for 602 fraud transactions but did not experience any financial loss.

Reacting to the incident, DC Owain Davies from the Hampshire Police Economic Crime Team said the sentences will serve as a deterrent to others who defraud people to survive.

Davies said, “This investigation involved extensive analysis of a huge amount of financial documentation in order to gather the evidence needed to put these offenders before the court. I hope that these results send a clear message to those who commit fraud that their actions won’t go unnoticed and that this type of behaviour will be investigated fully.”

Headline

VIDEO: Two Nigerians Arrested In Libya For Alleged Robbery

Published

1 hour ago

August 28, 2025

Editor

Police in Tripoli, Libya, have arrested two Nigerians for allegedly carrying out a series of robberies in the city.

The suspects, both undocumented migrants, were arrested on August 25 after they were captured on CCTV robbing a convenience store.

Migrant Rescue Watch, an organisation that monitors migrant activities, disclosed this in a statement on Tuesday.

According to the group, the suspects had allegedly been responsible for multiple break-ins and robberies targeting commercial stores with the intent of seizing cash.

The statement said, “Police in Tripoli arrested 2 undocumented #migrants of Nigerian nationality responsible for series of break and entries and robberies. The accused were targeting commercial stores with the intent of seizing cash. The case was referred to public prosecutor.”

Watch video below:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1961001698136072343https://twitter.com/i/status/1961001698136072343

Headline

NGO Says Starving Gaza Children Too Weak To Cry

Published

15 hours ago

August 27, 2025

Editor

The head of Save the Children described in horrific detail on Wednesday the slow agony of starving children in Gaza, saying they are so weak they do not even cry.

Addressing a Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the president of the international charity, Inger Ashing, said famine — declared by the UN last week to be happening in Gaza — is not just a dry technical term.

“When there is not enough food, children become acutely malnourished, and then they die slowly and painfully. This, in simple terms, is what famine is,” said Ashing.

She went on to describe what happens when children die of hunger over the course of several weeks, as the body first consumes its own fat to survive, and when that is gone, literally consumes itself as it eats muscles and vital organs.

“Yet our clinics are almost silent. Now, children do not have the strength to speak or even cry out in agony. They lie there, emaciated, quite literally wasting away,” said Ashing.

She insisted that aid groups have been warning loudly that famine was coming as Israel prevented food and other essentials from entering Gaza over the course of two years of war triggered by the Hamas attack of October 2023.

“Everyone in this room has a legal and moral responsibility to act to stop this atrocity,” said Ashing.

The United Nations officially declared famine in Gaza on Friday, blaming what it called the systematic obstruction of aid by Israel during more than 22 months of war.

A UN-backed hunger monitor called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative said famine was affecting 500,000 people in the Gaza governorate, which covers about a fifth of the Palestinian territory, including Gaza City.

The IPC projected that the famine would expand by the end of September to cover around two-thirds of Gaza.
AFP

Headline

Again, Russia Claims Another Village In Ukraine’s Region

Published

3 days ago

August 25, 2025

Editor

The Russian army Monday claimed to have captured another village in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, moving deeper into Ukrainian territory as peace efforts stall.

Russian forces are slowly but steadily gaining ground in costly battles for largely devastated areas in eastern and central Ukraine, normally with few inhabitants or intact buildings left.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had seized the settlement of Zaporizke in the region, which Russian troops recently advanced into for the first time in the three-and-a-half-year offensive.

Kyiv denies that Russian troops have gained a foothold in the Dnipropetrovsk region, an important industrial hub.

After another push by US President Donald Trump to broker a Ukraine-Russia summit, hopes for peace dimmed when Russia last week ruled out any immediate meeting between presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky.

The central region of Dnipropetrovsk has previously been largely spared from fighting that has ravaged swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, until Russia said its forces broke through in July.

Dnipropetrovsk is not one of the five Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea — that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.

Ukraine said Russia had launched over 100 drones Monday, killing a 37-year old civilian driver and wounding two people in the northeastern Sumy region.

Moscow said Kyiv had launched about two dozen drones targeting western Russia