Fraudsters Invade Aviation Industry with Fake Recruitment

Chinedu Eze

Fraudsters may have invaded the aviation industry and raked in millions of Naira from unsuspecting Nigerians who are made to pay for flight tickets to attend non-existent interviews with airlines, THISDAY investigations have revealed.

THISDYAY learnt that fraudsters, who front as airline staff, use phone calls to advertise and invite people to attend interviews after they have paid money into their accounts for tickets and sometimes they send fake e-tickets with Personal Name Recorder (PNR) numbers only for the victim to discover at the check-in counter that his ticket was fake.

An eyewitness told THISDAY on Tuesday that he received a call from somebody who introduced himself as Alhaji with phone number 09020325998 (Trucaller identified him as Alhaji Ibrahim) and said that the latest domestic airline, Green Africa Airways was recruiting and he submitted the names of three relatives who were seeking for job.

The Alhaji who used the email, esnieenational@gmail.com called again and said that his relatives had been accepted to attend an interview in Lagos but they must travel to Lagos with the airline, Green Africa Airways and should buy ticket for the flight.

He sent this account number: Mrs. Ijeoma S. Emeka, Keystone Bank, account number, 2052283712 (Head of Ticketing and Reservations, Green Africa Airline), Abuja.

The eyewitness told THISDAY that two things struck him that made him suspicious.

One, he wondered why the invitation insisted that the candidate must travel to Lagos with a flight operated by the airline, when he is free to use any means to get to Lagos.

Two, he also discovered that the account number given was a personal account, not that of the company, that is, the airline.

When THISDAY called the number, the Alhaji, who refused to fully identify himself, said that the recruitment exercise had ended and cut off the call.

Further investigation by THISDAY revealed that many Nigerians had been defrauded in this way and when the airline, Green Africa Airways was contacted, an official of the airline identified as Toyin, revealed that the company had received a lot of calls about recruitment exercise and said that the company was not recruiting.

According to her, the airline advertises vacancies on its website and through its confirmed social media platforms.

“We have received a lot of calls about recruitment exercise but we do not recruit through agency. We advertise vacancies through our website and through our social media platforms. We had even issued a disclaimer since June this year,” she told THISDAY.

THISDAY also spoke to the Media Communications Manager of Dana Air, Kingsley Ezenwa, who confirmed that fraudsters had used the airline to defraud Nigerians with fake recruitment exercise and that the airline carried out investigations to find out those responsible but banks and network providers refused to identify the owners of the telephone numbers and bank accounts they were able to get.

“Similar thing happened to us. They even cloned our email address and they were sending our emails to customers. We carried out investigation and traced the fraud to some people that we were able to track their bank account and their telephone network, but it was a bit difficult to get the cooperation of the banks and network providers. But recently we are no more getting so much of those complaints because people are beginning to be aware. But we were getting too many of such reports before.

“They are using the other airline now because it is a new airline. If we want to recruit we advertise it on our website and through our social media handles,” he said.

Spokesman of Air Peace, Stanley Olisa told THISDAY that the airline had gone through similar experience, where “unscrupulous” people had staged fake recruitment exercise into the airline and used it to defraud innocent Nigerians.

“We had that experience but we have sensitised the public so it does not happen often these days. People use it to swindle others. But when we get the report we dispel it and if we want to recruit we do so through our social media platforms, especially LinkedIn. They cannot even clone our website. Such breach cannot happen to our website,” Olisa said.

Reacting to the incidents, spokesperson of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Mrs. Carol Adekotujo said that the agency had not received such reports from the airlines.