Police in the United Kingdom have warned people about a new e-mail scam that targets students, after 29-year-old Olajide Onikoyi was convicted for using a student loan phishing scam to gain around £1.5 million, the Metropolitan Police’s Cyber Crime Unit said in a recent statement.
The fake e-mails were sent to students encouraging them to click on a link to update their loan details, however, the website was not genuine and Onikoyi used students’ personal data to access their bank accounts and withdraw their money.
Onikoyi managed to launder £393,000 in total from 238 students, with £19,000 being stolen from just one victim.
Officers at the Metropolitan Police have worked hard to secure his conviction and they have examined a lot of evidence that could lead to the identification of other members of the phishing group in which Onikoyi participated, said detective chief inspector Jason Tunn of the Cyber Crime Unit.
Onikoyi played a major role in the phishing scam by targeting UK students and financial institutions in Britain in an attempt to steal large amounts of cash that were dispersed into many bank accounts, Tunn said.
When Onikoyi’s personal computer was seized, the police found evidence of conversations that he had with Russian and Lithuanian gangs, as well as conversations with groups in the United Kingdom.
The police warned that such e-mails lead the user to hoax websites where the login details and other sensitive data are requested and users’ computers or other devices could be infected with malicious software.