‘Stolen Credit Card Information Was Retrieved,’ Witness Testifies Against Naira Marley

The trial of music artiste, Azeez Fashola who is popularly known as Naira Marley, commenced at the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos with the testimony of the first prosecution witness, Nuru Buhari.

Naira Marley is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on an 11-count charge of conspiracy, possession of counterfeit cards and fraud.

Mr. Buhari on Wednesday introduced himself as the Head of the Forensic Department at the Lagos Zonal Office of the EFCC.

He mentioned that he had, on various occasions, trained and mentored with the South Korean police department and the FBI respectively.

In his testimony before Justice Nicholas Oweibo, he testified that various stolen credit card information was retrieved from the musicians’ laptop. Apart from the stolen credit card information, website visit history recovered from the device showed that the top five most visited sites dealt with buying and selling stolen credit card information

“During analysis, the cache file and history file revealed that the most frequently visited sites by the user of the computer include arder007.org, Zuni.sa, nationwidecheckbalance.co.uk, ferunshop.net, and 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 is sold and traded, web 5 is an online shopping mall where members are given discounts for shopping from certain shops. ”

In answer to questions from the EFCC Counsel, Rotimi Oyedepo, the witness also told the court that stolen credit card information with a special status that allows transactions up-to $12,000 without a pin or physical card was found in a file named “select BIN 101.txt and .txt.”

“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. ”

Mr. Buhari also informed the court that suspicious apps that are mostly used by people with shady deals on the internet were found on the laptop.

“We analysed installed apps on the laptop and we found two apps that enable the owner of the computer to decide the server of a bank as to his identity and location, IP VANISH and TOR browser.

“The TOR browser is sometimes called the onion. 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 (VPN) which provides that the actual computer and location of usage cannot be identified. It also gives the user the ability to change their location. ”

Mr. Buhari says an analysis of the administrator account on the laptop revealed that the admin is one Naira Marley and the account was connected to his iCloud account.

The EFCC counsel has tendered in evidence, the request made by the commission for the analysis of the apple laptop mac book pro and an iPhone allegedly confiscated from the defendant. The court admitted them in evidence along with the forensic laboratory report which was prepared by Mr. Buhari (the witness).

Counsel to the defendant, Olalekan Ojo (SAN) has however asked the court for an adjournment.

The counsel told the court that most of the statements made by the witness was not contained in the witness statements made available to him by the prosecution and he was just hearing the evidence for the first time.

He, therefore, asked the court to grant the adjournment to enable him to closely review the testimony before cross-examining the witness.

Justice Oweibo has adjourned till tomorrow, 24th October for cross-examination of the witness.