Headline

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

Published

2 years ago

March 15, 2024

Editor

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

Afghanistan-Pakistan Border Clashes Escalate After Alleged Air Strikes

Published

22 hours ago

October 11, 2025

Editor

Afghanistan’s Taliban forces launched armed reprisals against Pakistani soldiers along the shared border on Saturday, accusing Islamabad of carrying out air strikes on its soil, senior officials from several provinces said Saturday.

On Thursday, two explosions were heard in the Afghan capital and another in the southeast of the country. The following day, the Taliban-run defence ministry blamed the attacks on Pakistan, accusing its neighbor of violating its sovereignty.

“In retaliation for air strikes carried out by the Pakistani army on Kabul,” Taliban forces are engaged “in heavy clashes against Pakistani security forces in various areas” along the border, the Afghan military said in a statement.

Islamabad did not confirm that it was behind Thursday’s attacks, but called on Kabul “to stop harbouring the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) on its soil.”

The TTP, trained in combat in Afghanistan and claiming to share the same ideology as the Afghan Taliban, is accused by Islamabad of having killed hundreds of its soldiers since 2021.

Taliban officials from Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost, and Helmand provinces — all located on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan — confirmed that clashes were ongoing.

“This evening, Taliban forces began using weapons. We fired first light and then heavy artillery at four points along the border,” a senior official in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Afghanistan, told AFP.

“Pakistani forces responded with heavy fire and shot down three Afghan quadcopters suspected of carrying explosives. Intense fighting continues, but so far, no casualties have been reported,” he continued.

– Uptick in violence –

In recent months, TTP militants have intensified their campaign of violence against Pakistani security forces in the mountainous areas bordering Afghanistan.

Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to expel militants who use Afghan territory to launch attacks on Pakistan, an accusation denied by authorities in Kabul.

The TTP and its affiliates are behind most of the violence — largely directed at security forces.

Earlier this year, a UN report said the TTP “receive substantial logistical and operational support from the de facto authorities”, referring to the Taliban government in Kabul.

Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told parliament on Thursday that several efforts to convince the Afghan Taliban to stop backing the TTP had failed.

“We will not tolerate this any longer,” Asif said. “United, we must respond to those facilitating them, whether the hideouts are on our soil or Afghan soil.”

Earlier Saturday, the TTP claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in several districts in northwest Pakistan that killed 20 security officials and three civilians.

AFP

Headline

Taliban Attacks Kill 23 In Northwestern Pakistan

Published

1 day ago

October 11, 2025

Editor

The Pakistani Taliban on Saturday claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in several northwestern districts that killed 20 security officials and three civilians.

The attacks, which included a suicide bombing on a police training school, were carried out on Friday in several districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.

Militancy has surged in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since the withdrawal of US-led troops from neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021 and the return of the Taliban government in Kabul.

Eleven paramilitary troops were killed in the border Khyber district, while seven policemen were killed after a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into the gate of a police training school, which was followed by a gun attack.

Five people, including three civilians, were killed in a separate clash in Bajaur district, security officials told AFP on Saturday.

The Pakistani Taliban, the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attacks in messages on social media. The group is separate from but closely linked with the Afghan Taliban.

The attacks came hours after Afghanistan’s Taliban government accused Pakistan of “violating Kabul’s sovereign territory”, a day after two explosions were heard in the capital.

Pakistan did not say if it was behind the blasts in Kabul, but said it had the right to defend itself against surging border militancy.

Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to expel militants using Afghan territory to launch attacks on Pakistan, an accusation that authorities in Kabul deny.

The TTP and its affiliates are behind most of the violence — largely directed at security forces.

Including Friday’s attacks, at least 32 Pakistani troops and three civilians have been killed this week alone in the border regions.

AFP

Headline

US Threatens To Sanction Countries That Vote For Shipping Carbon Tax

Published

1 day ago

October 11, 2025

Editor

The United States on Friday threatened to impose sanctions and take other punitive action against any country that votes in favor of a carbon tax on maritime transportation to be implemented through a UN agency.

“We will fight hard to protect our economic interests by imposing costs on countries if they support” the Net Zero Framework, said a joint statement by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his counterparts at the departments of energy and transportation.

Members of the London-based International Maritime Organization (IMO) are set to vote next week on the adoption of the Net Zero Framework (NZF) agreement aimed at reducing global carbon emissions from the shipping sector.

Washington, however, described the proposal as imposing “a global carbon tax on the world.”

Since returning to power in January, US President Donald Trump has reversed Washington’s course on climate change, denouncing it as a “scam” and encouraging fossil fuel use by deregulation.

In the statement, Rubio, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the Trump administration “unequivocally rejects” the NZF proposal.

They threatened a range of punishing actions against countries that vote in favor of the framework, including: visa restrictions; blocking vessels registered in those countries from US ports; imposing commercial penalties; and considering sanctions on officials.

“The United States will be moving to levy these remedies against nations that sponsor this European-led neocolonial export of global climate regulations,” the statement said.