Massive Job Scam Rocks Nigerian Customs Service (NCS)

There is ongoing scam of job sale in several cities purporting to be at the behest of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS).

With the desperation for employment in the country, many have fallen victims of the bait and paid dearly for it. Daily Sun investigations showed that the job slots go for as high as N500,000 for one and most times, the employment papers are prepared and names fixed to them, and just delivered to the buyer.

Many suspects have been detained. But the Customs authorities have denied links with such agents, which they described as fake and cautioned Nigerians not to fall for their tricks. With such tailor-made offers, the buyers are meant to bear the names on the job offer paper and the credentials already attached as those of the buyer. The syndicates are many.

They operate in diverse forms. While some use phone calls and personal contacts, others operate online, using some websites and Facebook accounts purported to be those of the Comptroller-General of NCS. Unfortunately, however, some of the people that bought these job offers met a brick-wall when they reported at the NCS head office in Abuja for documentation. Instead of the employment they paid for, they were rather arrested and handed over to the police where they are being interrogated.

"They give you a letter that bears names that are not yours and support them with academic documents and tell you that you bear the name on the letter all through your employment if you indeed need the job,"  a victim told Daily Sun. Though the victim said he refused the offer after he was asked to pay N500,000 to have the letter, he said that several people have, however, fallen prey to the syndicate. Another victim said that she paid N200,000 to another syndicate, which promised her a Customs job. The syndicates had fleeced job-seeking Nigerians of millions of naira with the fake employment offers.

According to the victim, a lady who convinced her victims with evidence of NCS staff ID card, leads one of the syndicates. "She showed us her staff Identity card and the uniform in her car to convince us. She told us that she works with the Head of the Human Resources department and our names will appear on the priority list. We have not heard from her since then. The woman lives in Gwarimpa, here in Abuja and I am sure the authorities know of her because other people who have been her victims said she had been in the business of Customs job fixing for long."  The victim gave out the names of one Mr. Amadi, said to be a Customs official, as a member of a syndicate led by another alleged Customs official called Oluwaseyi. Efforts to confirm if they are actually staffers of the NCS proved negative as they were said to be unknown to the service.

Calls put to Amadi on a telephone number said to be his, were not responded to. Questions about the actual identity of Oluwaseyi, who we gathered, might have made more than N10 million from the fraud, turned out negative. Authorities of the NCS actually confirmed to Daily Sun that indeed, it had uncovered false job syndicates that operate to defraud Nigerians, to tarnish the image of the service.

It also said it is already investigating such syndicates to know the extent of their activities. From Customs sources, the syndicates operate online through websites and the social media to lure their victims. They operate about three Facebook accounts in the name of the Comptroller-General (CG) of Customs through which many Nigerians have been duped for job and contracts. But every reasonable job-seeker should know the CG couldn’t descend so low as to respond to official matters on Facebook chat.

The CG does not have a Facebook account, Superintendent Joseph Attah, Customs spokesman, said. Other sources Daily Sun contacted at the Customs headquarters in Abuja, confirmed that some members of a job syndicate had been arrested and under investigation over alleged extortion of money on the pretext that they would be offered employment in the NCS.

Attah said, "the leadership of the service had ordered investigations which led to the discovery of huge fraud by the syndicates. Some members of the syndicates are already in detention and have made useful statements, while other leads are still being trailed by the service".  A woman already penciled down as notorious in the syndicate is one Hajiya Rekiya, who is a resident of Mararaba, a satellite town in Nasarawa State, near the FCT. She operates a syndicate that had duped job-seekers of up to N14 million. Among her victims are 53 persons who paid into her account and direct cash to her sums ranging between N50,000 and N300,000.

Investigations by Customs, as the NCS said, is a discovery that the said Rekiya parades herself as a Customs officer while carrying a forged Customs Identity card and claims to be working for a wider syndicate, inside the service. Hajiya tells her victims she is a Customs officer and usually came to them with an Identity card tagged on her uniform while also working with forged letterheads and other official documents of the NCS. Sources at the Customs headquarters indicate that "because investigations are still on-going, it is not yet possible to ascertain how extensive the span of the crime is and if there are people who are involved from inside."

Attah said the Comptroller-General, Abdullahi Inde Dikko, has placed every segment of the service on high alert over these activities and instituted internal checks even after alerting the police of the development. He assured that since we didn't contract or mandate anybody to recruit workers for the service, then, whoever does that intends to undermine the CG who is doing his best to ensure the Customs remains a reputable organization.

Source: Daily Sun