Posted by By OLUWATOYOSI OGUNSEYE on
Another financial scam is rocking the banking sector as two staff of a mega bank and two other suspects have been held by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over a N113, 150,000 fraud.
Another financial scam is rocking the banking sector as two staff of a mega bank and two other suspects have been held by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over a N113, 150,000 fraud.
The officials, Ezeali Michael, who is the head of clearing at the bank's Abuja regional office, in which capacity he represented the bank at the CBN-supervised clearing house, allegedly conducted a dummy posting of money into four different accounts at the Wuse branch of the bank.
The other official, Adeoye Adewunmi, who works in another branch, was also present when this was done.
The Accounts into which the money was posted are: 2361770004525, 2381760009420 1581770004733 and 2361010033931, belonging to Beegrove Nigeria Ltd, Olukorede Taiwo Ademuyiwa, Assab Bureau De Change Ltd and Olusola Badmus respectively.Ezeali allegedly posted the sums of N13, 850,000, N11, 500,000, N80, 000,000 and N7, 800,000 into the accounts respectively.
Daily Sun gathered that the suspect, armed with a devise with which he could access other branches of the bank in Lagos, got into the Wuse branch early in the morning on December 16, 2006 to perpetrate the crime.
The Head, Media and Publicity of the EFCC, Mr. Osita Nwajah, revealed that Ezeali was aided by one Chika Okonkwo, who tricked some of the lawful account owners into which the money was posted. He said: "Ezeali has admitted conducting dummy posting into the accounts. After the operation, he improperly shut down without allowing it to properly finish the end-of-day processing. He also forcefully put off the UPS."
After he shut down the UPS, the suspect went home around 12p.m on that Saturday.
On December 18, 2006, which was a Monday, the sum of N5, 527,000 was withdrawn from the Olusola Badmus account early in the morning.
The bubble, however, burst when one Umar Bello went to one of the Lagos branches of the bank to withdraw N80 million from the Assab Bureau De Change account.
The bank officials were surprised that a customer would want to withdraw such a large amount at once. They suspected foul play and asked him who owned the money. He was said to have revealed that someone called him on phone that he needed dollars to the sum of N80 million and that he had posted the money into his account.
Umar further said that he was withdrawing the money, so that he could give the customer the dollar equivalent, a source at the commission said, adding that they suspected that Ezeali, the prime suspect was working in conjunction with the owners of the accounts. "His other colleague, Adeoye, also had no business in that branch because he does not work there," Nwajah said.
Ezeali, who was employed by the bank less than a year ago, has six years banking experience. He regretted his act, saying, "greed, pressure and over-zealousness" lured him into the act.