Nigerian woman Busted on Sim Box Fraud

Comfort Gbedebo in police custody

 The Visa and Documentation Fraud Unit of the police Criminal Investigations Department (CID) has arrested a 30-year-old Nigerian woman for allegedly engaging in Sim Box fraud. The suspect, Comfort Gbadebo, according to police reports, was operating a Sim Box machine which was capable of blocking revenue up to $13,824 daily from the United States of America. The operation was conducted by Subah Infosolutions in collaboration with the police CID taskforce at the All Faith Medical Centre at Aplaku, along the Accra-Winneba road. She was purportedly operating her illegal business from an uncompleted single room apartment where she lives together with her three-year-old daughter and a sibling, when the police apprehended her on Thursday, February 11, 2016. Two Sim Box machines – each loaded with about 128 Sim cards of MTN – were discovered together with an inverter and two huge batteries.
The seized Sim Box machines Sim Box Fraud2 The entire room of the suspect was also reportedly littered with MTN Sim and recharge cards, some of which were unused. . Upon interrogation by the police, Comfort Gbadebo allegedly said she was introduced to the illegal business by a Nigerian benefactor who lives in London, United Kingdom.

Comfort Gbadebo told the police that she had been operating for almost a year using only MTN Sim cards. The director in-charge of the Visa and Documentation Fraud Unit, DSP Seth Sewornu, who confirmed the arrest, said it took only about an hour for the taskforce to locate Comfort using the special electronic signal system. “On-the-spot analyses showed that Comfort and her gang block international calls to Ghana, leading to the loss of up to $13,824 revenue each day.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the suspect had on several occasions redeemed her share of the booty from her accomplice through the Western Union Money Transfer system and that her last withdrawal was less than two weeks ago.

The Sim Box taskforce on Friday, February 4, 2016 intercepted a similar illegal Sim Box system with a total of 8,672 Sim cards belonging to MTN, Airtel, Glo and Tigo. DSP Seth Sewornu called on the public, especially landlords, to be vigilant and report suspicious behaviours of tenants to the police.