By Mary Izuaka

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has raised the alarm over an increasing trend of impersonators parading as its officials to defraud members of the public.

In a statement by its Head of Media and Publicity, Dele Oyewale, on Tuesday the anti-graft agency said the trend, observed across major cities, involves organised groups deploying deceptive tactics to undermine its operations and damage its reputation.

These include setting up ambushes around eateries and leisure spots, where young people are falsely accused of internet fraud and stripped of their belongings. The suspects reportedly wear fake EFCC uniforms and transport victims to locations made to resemble official commission offices.

“Their modus operandi is laying ambush for innocent youths coming out of the eateries and harassing them on unfounded suspicions of being internet fraudsters and dispossessing them of their valuables. These characters usually portray the identities of authentic EFCC officers by dressing in fake uniforms and moving their victims to locations bearing fictitious resemblance to an EFCC office,” the EFCC said.

The anti-graft agency explained that there is also a gang of itinerant criminals harassing innocent motorists on the identities of their number plates.

“These ones wield dangerous weapons to compel their victims to offer them money on trumped-up accusations. There is yet another tribe of online impersonators and fraudulent content creators dramatising fake sting operations of the EFCC with evidence of broken doors, windows and forced entrance into their premises.”

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“Such uncharacteristic portrayals of the EFCC could deceive unsuspecting members of the public into holding the commission and its officers culpable of contrived actions of impersonators,” the statement said.

“The public is enjoined to be circumspect in its evaluation of claims intended to drag the Commission’s image into the mud. The EFCC has its standard operating procedures about all its activities and appropriate channels of ventilating grievances against any operation or officer of the Commission are in place.

“While the EFCC is steadfastly pursuing its mandate of ridding the nation of economic and financial crimes and other acts of corruption, well-meaning and reform-minded Nigerians should not allow their judgment of the works of the Commission to be negatively affected by the activities of these impersonators, blackmailers and fake characters using the identities of the Commission to serve their nefarious interests,” the EFCC said.