Conventional crime rates are dropping around the world following the Coronavirus outbreak. But scammers in Nigeria and elsewhere are leveraging the COVID-19 pandemic to steal money or personal information through other means, writes ROBERT EGBE.
The pictures are surreal: the Kabba in Mecca, Wall Street in New York, Agege Motor Road in Lagos, St Peter’s Square in the Vatican, deserted.
They all tell the same story: Earth is closed, or closing for repairs.
The multitudes that used to throng these areas and many others around the world have been kept away by an invisible enemy: the Coronavirus or COVID-19.
General crime rates plummet
But people are not the only thing the virus is keeping off the streets. Crime, a hallmark of human civilisation, is also beating a retreat, at least in the short term.
Latest figures from around the world, especially in Europe and the United States, seem to show a decline in regular crime in several cities since the onset of COVID-19.
The New York Police Department last Thursday said the number of serious crimes dropped 20 percent in the last two and a half weeks of March compared to a year ago following the declaration of a state of emergency due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The data showed that overall crime dropped across every borough, in public housing and the transit system between March 12 and March 31 compared to the same period a year ago.
The number of murders fell 10 percent, from 16 to 12, as did robberies (551 from 612). Grand larcenies were down 37 percent from 2019, 1,334 compared to 2,115 last year.
By contrast, the city’s overall crime rate jumped 28 percent from March 1 through March 11 compared to the same period a year ago.
Los Angeles, California’s biggest city, saw a similar drop in crime, according to statistics released by the Los Angeles Police Department. Violent offences fell over 11 percent in March compared to February.
Homicide in California’s biggest city fell by almost 43 percent, while rape dropped by about 37 percent and robbery declined by 14 percent.
Violent crime in Chicago, Atlanta and Denver all also dropped last month compared to statistics from March 2019.
In the United Kingdom (UK), the coronavirus crisis led to a drop in recorded crime, by as much as 20 per cent in some areas last month.
In Durham, England, officers recorded an average of 130 crimes a day, as opposed to an average of 165 the previous week.
The rates were similar in Devon and Cornwall where crime dropped by two thirds, following the shutting of pubs, clubs, and restaurants.
The virus has also disrupted criminal trade between Mexican criminal groups and their accomplices in China. Shipments of everything from counterfeit luxury goods to chemical precursors from China have been suspended, according to a report by a radio station in Mexico City, MVS Noticias.
COVID-19-related crimes rise
But the drop in conventional crimes has led to a corresponding increase in other crimes.
As the coronavirus pandemic spreads, so too do the crimes related to it.
The United Kingdom’s National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) said on March 6 that it had received more than 100 reports of virus-related scams since February.
It said victims in The UK lost more than £970,000 to such scams.
In one of the scams, a victim lost £15,000 for masks that never arrived.
“We have already seen fraudsters using the COVID-19 pandemic to scam people looking to buy medical supplies online … and targeting people who may be vulnerable or increasingly isolated at home,” Graeme Biggar, Director-General of the National Economic Crime Centre in the U.K., said in a statement.
Popular C0VID-19 scams:
The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) last Friday warned that criminals are exploiting the crisis by adapting their operations.
Popular C0VID-19 scams, it said in a statement, include: fraudulent coronavirus tests, fake masks and sham pharmaceutical products being touted as treatments for COVID-19.
“Criminals have been quick to seize opportunities to exploit the crisis by adapting their modus operandi or engaging in new criminal activities.
“Factors that prompt changes in crime and terrorism include: High demand for certain goods, protective gear and pharmaceutical products; decreased mobility and flow of people across and into the EU,” the statement said.
Others, it added, occur because more people now remain at home and are increasingly teleworking, relying on digital solutions.
Limitations to public life will also make some criminal activities less visible and displace them to home or online settings.
Increased anxiety and fear that may create vulnerability to exploitation as well as decreased supply of certain illicit goods in the EU, are other factors.
NITDA warns against fraudulent websites
Back home, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) recently alerted the public to similar ploys devised by scammers.
One of them involved the creation of fraudulent websites to capitalise on the pandemic to commit fraud.
The agency in a statement said it will prevent attempt to shut down the websites and prosecute the criminals.
NITDA Head of Media, Hajiya Umar Hadiza said: “The agency’s Computer Emergency Readiness and Response Team (CERRT) identified a number of websites using various phishing tricks to attract Internet users.
“One of such tricks is misinforming the public that Federal Government has ordered weekly payment of allowances to all citizens above the age of 18 for observing the ‘Stay At Home’ directive. It then requires the user to complete an online form with the personal information including bank details for the payment to be effected.”
Last March 31 at about 3pm, the Police in Onitsha arrested a four-man syndicate allegedly impersonating COVID-19 officials of the Anambra State Ministry of Health.
The suspects, fully kitted with reflective jackets and Caps with inscriptions, “FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19” were arrested with flyers, inferior quality hand sanitisers and face masks, said to have been produced locally under unhygienic conditions.
Tips to avoid COVID-19 scams
Your bank or the police will never ask you to transfer money or move it to a safe account.
Criminals are targeting people looking to buy medical supplies online, sending emails offering fake medical support and scamming people who may be vulnerable or increasingly isolated at home. These frauds try to lure you in with offers that look too good to be true, such as high return investments and ‘healthcare opportunities’, or make appeals for you to support bogus charities or those who are ill.
Reports from the public have already included online shopping scams where people have ordered protective face masks, hand sanitisers, and other products, which have never arrived and a number of cases have been identified where fake testing kits have been offered for sale.
Criminals are also using government branding to try to trick people, including reports of using to make spurious offers of financial support through unsolicited emails, phone calls and text messages.
This situation is likely to continue, with criminals looking to exploit further consequences of the pandemic, such as exploiting financial concerns to ask for upfront fees for bogus loans, offering high-return investment scams, or targeting pensions.
Huge increases in the number of people working remotely mean that significantly more people will be vulnerable to computer service fraud where criminals will try and convince you to provide access to your computer or divulge your logon details and passwords. It is also anticipated that there will be a surge in phishing scams or calls claiming to be from government departments offering grants, tax rebates, or compensation.
Palliatives Nigerians prefer
Sir: Compelled to stay home without electricity for more than 14 straight days is sickening enough; and if one is among the over 100 million whose daily livelihood is being mortgaged for a disease he not only doubts exists, but feels some are profiting from it, one can’t overlook the disproportionate distribution of relief by the authorities.
What was supposed to have brought relief brought grief.
First, the recipients of the stimulus packages are loose. Who are the “poorest of the poor”?
That such a caste still exists and commands the attention of the government that categorized them as such only mirrors a democracy that is wired for the few. The inability to have a credible database of citizens makes the delivery of these aids dodgy.
How is this class of people determined? Are they women as the Ministry of Women of Affairs is sharing? Are they senior citizens? Are they physically challenged? Do they live in satellite towns? Are they rural and illiterate? We can’t even attempt to go door to door as seen in other nations because town planning that sees dwellings accessible and addressed is lacking.
So far, the narrative is measures of rice, noodles, beans, garri and bread packaged in small bags branded in the pictures of the politician, political office and/or political party it came from given to a group of people. Reminiscent of electioneering.
These beneficiaries convene at designated distribution centres to collect their packs thereby frustrating the social distancing protocol of the times. When they are not assembled, the meagre parcel that hardly feeds a family, is sent to entire communities as relief. Adding insult to injury, they are made to receive it in front of cameras.
Because less than 40% of Nigerians are banked and with access to financial services, in contravention to the cashless policy and blatant abuse of the naira, cash is being shared in broad daylight in the name of conditional cash transfer to beneficiaries.
Now, the federal government claims it is using a preexisting register of the poor. Is this how crude the social intervention programme has been running? Why do the recipients not have a Bank Verification Number so as not only to boost the banking system but also give them a trackable identity?
The leadership of the National Assembly has called on the executive arm of the government to be more equitable in the distribution of these palliatives as it also called for a coordination of COVID-19 donations to be in a central account independent of the Presidential Task Force.
However, equitable distribution of palliatives won’t come by banal summons of the executive to the chambers, it would come when both arms of government put Nigeria and Nigerians ahead of themselves.
The equitable intervention that will benefit all Nigerians won’t come from the kobo by kobo reduction in the pump price of petrol.
Rather, it would come when both the executive and the legislators work together to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill that will fully deregulate that sector for free market operations and pricing.
The suggestion by the NNPC Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, that the loss-making refineries would be sold should not just end as another soundbite, it must be backed up by policy statement and legal framework.
Following a proposal by the Federal Government and the National Assembly to cushion the effects of the economic downturn the coronavirus is bringing; electricity distribution companies have responded by offering Nigerians free electricity consumption for two months. We appreciate it.
However, more reaching would have been to mandate the DISCOs to ensure every consumer is metered. At the moment, less than 50% of electricity consumers are metered with far less than 10 million having prepaid meters. What this implies is that this awuf will amount to nothing when the costumer indirectly pays back through estimated billing.
The leadership of the National Assembly can take advantage of the shock expressed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation on the deplorable state of the health sector to work with the executive to insist on a double-digit percentage share of the budget for the sector.
As much as receiving packs of grains would indeed help in this trying time, the populace should not be carried away by this stomach infrastructure.
The preferable infrastructure would be Primary Healthcare Centres in every political ward. The preferred palliative would be the registration of large “poor and vulnerable” demography into the National Health Insurance Scheme. It is then that a pack of five loaves and two fishes would feed a multitude.
Ayodele Okunfolami, Festac, Lagos.
