An Apple laptop and an iPhone allegedly recovered from Afrobeat artiste, Naira Marley, were tendered as exhibits on Wednesday as his trial kicks off at the Federal High Court in Lagos
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, tendered the items, saying the items were recovered from him.
If found guilty at the end, the trial may mark the beginning of the end for the career of Naira Marley, whose real name is Azeez Fashola.
Marley, who is facing an 11-count charge before Justice Nicholas Oweibo, had pleaded not guilty when he was arraigned in May. He was granted a N2 million bail with two sureties.
An investigator of the EFCC, Mr. Nuru Buhari, told the court, at the onset of the trial, Wednesday, that forensic analysis of the musician’s laptop revealed “damning evidence of credit card fraud…”
The analysis, the EFCC investigator added, showed that Marley frequented the top five most-visited websites which deal in buying and selling stolen credit cards.
“During analysis,” the investigator continued, “the cache file and history file revealed that the most frequently visited sites by the user of the computer includes arder007.org, Zuni.sa, nationwidecheckbalance.co.uk, ferunshop.net AMD cocoa.co.uk.
“Analysis of the websites revealed that web 1 is where stolen card information is being sold to intending fraudsters, web 2 is for stolen credit cards specifically for the UK, web 3 is an online website designed for UK cardholders to check their balance wherever they are around the world, web 4 is a dark web meaning an underground tunnel in the Internet where stolen credit card information are sold and traded, web 5 is an online shopping mall where members are given discounts for shopping from certain shops.”
The investigator said his team also found a file named, Select BIN 101.txt and .txt., and on opening the file they discovered it contained “stolen credit card information with special status that allows transaction up to $12,000 without a pin or physical card.”
“For the note file, two major files were discovered named .txt, which contained about four credit card information, belonging to four different personalities in the UK, including one Nicole Louise.
“The second file is named selected BIN101.txt containing Bank Identification Number of European, American and Latin American banks.
“When we ran the BIN code search for the first six digits of the cards, it revealed they are Visa cards issued by Barclay’s bank, Sandander UK plc.
“We identified that certain banks in the US, Europe and Asia with certain peculiarities, these are banks that they issue credit cards without pins based on the high level of trust, they allow a transaction of up to $12,000 in a swipe on pos.
“Cards issued by those banks are card not required. All you need to execute a transaction is the card number and the CVV number. ”
Analysis of installed apps on Naira Marley’s laptop, Buhari continued, showed that two of them, IP VANISH and TOR Browser, enable the owner of the computer to disguise his identity and location.
“The TOR Browser is sometimes called the Onion,” Buhari said. “Most of the criminals cover their tracks with various layers just like an onion using this app to make it near impossible for a tracker to track their location.
“The IP VANISH is a virtual private network, which provides that the actual computer and location of usage cannot be identified. It also gives the user the ability to change their location.”
The trial continues on Thursday.
Recall that the EFCC had, last December declared war on cyber criminals when it launched Operation Cyber Storm. As the campaign gathered momentum, a vigorous debate ensued on social and in the traditional media that the Nigerian music circuit was replete with artistes who colluded with internet fraudsters, a.k.a Yahoo Boys, to fleece people of their hard-earned money.
At the height of the crisis, United Kingdom-based Nigerian rapper, Simi, told her 4.4 million Instagram followers that internet fraud was evil and that Yahoo Boys must never touch her music or videos.
Marley fired back, declaring, in pidgin English: “If u know about slavery u go know say yahoo no b crime.”
But when Nigerians took him to the cleaners over the indecent statement, he recapitulated days later. On one hand, he urged Nigerians to “pray for internet fraudsters” rather than condemn them. On another hand, he doubled down on his support for Yahoo Boys when he claimed they, through their fraudulent activities, bring a lot of money into the economy. “Where the fuck do you think it’s coming from? You think it’s coming from the government?” Marley said on his Instagram handle.
Angered by that remorseless statement, Nigerians urged the EFCC to investigate the Afrobeat star. In the middle of the roiling controversy, the artiste, on May 9, released: Am I a Yahoo Boy? The song featured Nigerian rapper, Zlatan.
