Notorious Facebook Fraudster ‘Snake’ Arrested After Years of Online Scams

A 25-year-old cybercrime suspect known as Umar Yau, popularly called “Snake,” has been arrested by the Bauchi State Police Command after a high-tech manhunt exposed his involvement in a long-running series of online fraud and identity theft operations dating back to 2019.

The breakthrough came after an online businesswoman, Mrs. Fatimah Faiz Ali Bawahab, submitted a petition to the police, alleging that her identity had been used repeatedly in online scams. According to her complaint, the fraudster impersonated her on Facebook, using her name and photographs to deceive unsuspecting victims.

The scheme first came to light in 2022 when a victim, Nafiu Muhd, reported being swindled after transferring money to a First Bank account under the name Hansatu Yau. After the transaction, the fraudster blocked the victim, raising red flags of a larger scam network. By early 2023, several individuals had reached out to Mrs. Bawahab claiming they had been defrauded by someone posing as her online. Investigators traced the fraudulent payments back to the same Hansatu Yau account, revealing a consistent pattern of impersonation and deception.

Acting on the directive of the Bauchi State Commissioner of Police, CP Sani-Omolori Aliyu, detectives from the CP Monitoring Unit launched a discreet, tech-driven operation. Their efforts culminated in the arrest of the suspect on June 5, 2025, in the Yelwan Makaranta area of Bauchi.

During the operation, several incriminating items were recovered from the suspect, including nine ATM cards from various banks, a completed FCMB account opening form fraudulently filled out in his sister Maryam Yau’s name along with her academic documents, two NIN plastic cards and three voter’s cards all bearing his own details, three new SIM cards from different telecom providers, a ZTE Universal Mobile 4G MiFi device, and an Infinix Smart 9 smartphone box.

In a statement released by the Bauchi State Police Command spokesperson Ahmed Wakil, Umar Yau reportedly confessed to defrauding around 40 victims, some of whom were involved in cryptocurrency trading. He admitted to creating and operating multiple fake bank accounts under various aliases to carry out the scams.

Following his arrest, the case has been transferred to the Kano State Police Command for further investigation and prosecution.