A 26-year-old man, Caleb Nzube, who attempted to blackmail the wife of late Chief MKO Abiola of $5,000, was last week arrested in Anambra State.
Nzube allegedly hacked the Twitter handle of Mrs Tinu Abiola, downloaded her picture and designed a web page showing the woman carrying a human skull.
He then threatened to expose the web page to the world if the woman does not pay $5,000.
Traumatised Mrs Abiola, it was learned, petitioned the Inspector General, Solomon Arase, who directed a combined team of the Inspector General Monitoring Team and the Intelligence Response Team to track down the suspect.
He was arrested when the operatives stormed his hideout in Obosi.
It was gathered that Mrs Abiola was not the suspect’s only victim, as a serving Senator and two others were also being harassed by him on the social media.
Speaking with Vanguard after his arrest, Caleb Elom Nzube agreed that he is an internet fraudster as he specialised in online dating before venturing into blackmailing thinking it was more lucrative.
Disclosing he spent hours on the social media searching for prominent Nigerians, Nzube said his targets are mainly rich politicians, popular businessmen and socialite.
He said he goes after these set of people because he thinks they are usually sensitive to what is said about them in the public.
Explaining how he got into trouble he said:
“I started following Mrs Timu Alade Abiola on Twitter and I got her pictures. I felt she was a good catch and I decided to blackmail her. I used Photoshop to make it look like she was carrying a human skull. I designed a web page with a little gossip story on it that she was caught for ritual.
I sent her the link and when she saw it I demanded she pays me $5000 or I will show it to the whole world. One of her friends came in and begged that I shouldn’t do it and that they were ready to pay me $ 2000. I rejected the money, insisting that I must collect the amount I demanded.
Later they discovered I was Igbo and they gave my number to an Igbo girl who started talking to me and I accepted their offer, what got me angry was that while we were still talking, they sent a fishing link that destroyed my website which I have been maintaining for more than four years. That website had paid me little money I have used in sustaining myself.
I told the Igbo girl about it and that if I don’t get the money before the end of the week I will show the web page to the whole world. She asked for my account, I gave it to her but before I knew what was happening, the police came and arrested me.
I don’t understand why she has to bring in the police; I told the girl that what I needed was for her to tell her madam to just pay me for my website they destroyed. In fact I regret all this, if I had known it will be this messy I would have not ventured into this. What I do is only dating. I just wanted to try my luck on this one.” he lamented.”
