Crack operatives of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps have successfully clamped down on some UTME registration fraudsters with useful confessions taken.
File Photo: JAMB Candidates
Over five persons have been arrested by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps for various infractions in the ongoing registration exercise for the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination in some parts of the country, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board has said.
The organisation said the fraudsters were apprehended in various locations where they were perpetrating their illegal activities.
The Spokesperson of JAMB, Dr. Fabian Benjamin, in a statement issued in Abuja on Saturday, said, “Some of the registration thieves are owners of Computer-Based Test centres who were licensed to conduct registration exercise for the forthcoming UTME.”
The suspects who were allegedly caught while perpetrating certain irregularities in the ongoing registration for the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations have reportedly confessed to spending over N20m to construct a radio platform with which they hacked into JAMB’s registration portal.
The suspects reportedly had deployed fake biometric capturing machines to register applicants.
Dr. Fabian Benjamin also added that; “These registration thieves deployed fake biometric capturing mechanisms and super-imposed registration slips just to satisfy the curiosity of innocent candidates that their registration was successful.
“And on the day of examination, such candidates’ data would either be edited, or not found on the JAMB data base.
“Such candidates would not be verified during the examination proper.”
Benjamin disclosed that the fraudsters were arrested variously in Oyo, Ogun and Maiduguri by officers and men of the NSCDC and brought to Abuja.
During their interrogations in Abuja, Benjamin said, the suspects gave startling revelations of how they conducted their operations.
“While being paraded in the presence of the Commandant-General of NSCDC, Abdullahi Gana Mohamadu, the fraudsters confessed to numerous registration infractions that JAMB couldn’t imagine,” Benjamin said.