"We spent N20m to hack JAMB registration portal" - Suspects confess

Some fraudsters have confessed to spending over N20m to construct a radio platform with which they hacked into the registration portal of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), The Punch reports.

The suspects, who were arrested by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), were caught while perpetrating certain irregularities in the ongoing registration for the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME).

Dr Fabian Benjamin, Head of Public Relations of JAMB, in a statement issued in Abuja on Saturday, said:

“These registration thieves deployed fake biometric capturing mechanisms and super-imposed registration slips just to satisfy the curiosity of innocent candidates that their registration was successful.”

“And on the day of examination, such candidates’ data would either be edited, or not found on the JAMB data base.

“Such candidates would not be verified during the examination proper.”

The JAMB spokesman further said that the fraudsters were arrested variously in Oyo, Ogun and Maiduguri by officers and men of the NSCDC and brought to Abuja.

During their interrogations in Abuja, Benjamin said, the suspects gave startling revelations of how they conducted their operations.

“While being paraded in the presence of the Commandant-General of NSCDC, Abdullahi Gana Mohamadu, the fraudsters confessed to numerous registration infractions that JAMB couldn’t imagine.”

“Some of these registration suspects are Computer-Based Test (CBT) centres owners licensed by JAMB to conduct registration exercise for the candidates planning to take the forthcoming UTME,” Benjamin said.