EFCC Warns Hoteliers Allowing Yahoo Boys Check Into Their Hotels

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has warned that hoteliers who allow Yahoo Boys to check into their facilities risk being punished and incarcerated.

In a statement on its official Facebook page, the anti-graft agency claimed hoteliers could bag a five-year jail term for enabling cybercriminals access to rooms in their hotels.

The warning came after Peoples Gazette’s investigation disclosed how the anti-graft agency aggressively snatched a Lagos hotel access card and stormed into guests’ rooms in a nocturnal raid.

Many guests, including couples, were passing the night at the mid-size hotel when EFCC officials burst in at about 4:00 a.m. Some of them stated they were naked under the duvet throughout the raid, adding that they were not even permitted to change up before being interrogated by the officers, who said they were on a manhunt for suspected Internet fraudsters.

However, EFCC, in the statement, stated that what played out during the raid was a routine antic adopted by Yahoo Boys in buying time to destroy incriminating items in their devices before arrest.

“In the course of the operation, the (EFCC) agents encountered ladies in several of the rooms who pleaded nudity to stop them from arresting their targets. This has lately been the antics of cyber fraudsters who procure girls to plead nudity as a decoy, to allow their consort remove incriminating items in their gadgets before arrest,” the EFCC statement added.

Warning hoteliers against allowing cybercriminals into their premises, the EFCC said hoteliers would be contravening section 3 of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act if they continued to allow Yahoo Boys to check into their hotels.

According to EFCC, the act proposes five years’ jail for hoteliers who are collaborators of hackers.

“The hotel owner perhaps is ignorant of the fact that he could become an accomplice and liable for allowing his premises to be used for cybercrime, in contravention of section 3 of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act,” the anti-graft agency claimed.

It added, “The section provides that a person who, being the occupier or is concerned in the management of any premises, causes or knowingly permits the premises to be used for any purpose which constitutes an offence under this act is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of not less than five years without the option of a fine.”

The anti-graft office was, however, silent on how it would prove a case of active conspiracy between the hotel owners and suspected Internet fraudsters who use their facilities.

Hotels often ask customers to fill their occupation as part of the check-in procedure, but guests are not required to answer the question. Even then, hoteliers would have to establish that every customer provided true information about themselves at check-in for them to avoid EFCC’s threat of prosecution.