With the high rate of cybercrime and other bank
related frauds in the country, it is a fact that most of the thefts are made
possible with the support of some unscrupulous bank staffs, aided by the
vulnerable security system of the financial institutions. One bank that is
currently enmeshed in this scandal is the United Bank for Africa (UBA). The
bank arguably has one of the weakest security systems when it comes to the
safety of customers’ funds in their custody. This is a story of how a total sum
of N1,911,928,957,18 belonging to a pension fund administrator was fraudulently
moved from the coffers of UBA.
Newscarte’s investigations revealed that the money was moved out from the UBA Treasury account in five tranches between 25 March, 2020 to 5 June, 2020. The first four tranches of the fraudulent transaction were over N400 million each, while the last one, which took place in June, was N200million plus.
The over N1.9 billion was moved from the Pension Fund
Administrator’s account (PFA), PAL Pensions Alliance.
It’s worthy of note that between 25 March and 5 June
when these monies were moved from UBA coffers, the bank did not even notice
until July ending. It was the IRT detectives that called UBA’s attention to the
fraud. This is a testament to the bank’s weak and vulnerable security system.
Investigations further revealed that three UBA
Treasury staff headed by Mr Osita Omeje were authorizers of the fraud. Others
are Dirisu Sunday and Nappy Ngbale Aiyegbusi. It was learnt that one of them
had only been promoted once in the over eight years of working with the bank.
Rather than fix its abysmal internal security, the management of UBA decided to
block over 200 accounts of innocent customers suspected to be linked to the
alleged fraudsters. When such customers go to the bank to complain at the customer
care unit, they will be arrested. It turned out that greater percentage of
people whose accounts were frozen are innocent vendors or professionals at
different fields, who were patronized by the suspected fraudsters.
One of the three UBA staff in a police statement said
they didn’t notice caution on the mail before processing and approving the
transactions because of the heavy workload they face on a daily basis.
The standard practice is that before such an amount of
money can be transferred to another account, there must be an instruction
(mail) from UBA Pension to UBA treasury department. In this case, the
instruction was forged and the e-mail of the UBA Pension processors in charge
were cloned. At UBA Treasury level, the mail flagged, and they saw that it was
a fraudulent mail, but they still went ahead to authorize it. Meanwhile, UBA
Treasury handled its erring officers with kid’s gloves, as they didn’t face any
legal consequence, only questioned internally and left off the hook, while some
UBA Pension staffs, a subsidiary of UBA group were axed.
Meanwhile, the Investigative Police Officers (IPO) in
charge of the case, then DSP Barau Iliyasu, DSP William Buba and others, were
having a field day milking and extorting the other parties involved in the
fraud. Over 100 innocent bank customers who had legal transactions with the
culprits were arrested and extorted by the investigating officers.
Consequently, before most accounts were opened back, these officers were
collecting monies, as well had percentage from recovered funds. Many alleged
suspects also testified to the unprofessional act of these officers where most
were tortured, restricted from seeing their lawyers before taking their
statements and limit visitations.
Newscarte gathered that on several occasions,
delegates were sent to Tony Elumelu, the CEO of UBA group, to forgive and let
go after funds have been recouped from the suspects and since there was
evidence of negligence from his bank employees, but all efforts proved
abortive. Some argue that rather than Tony Elumelu declining to forgive the
alleged suspects, being a seasoned professional, a philanthropist and a kind
man of the people, he should deduce a learning curve from this mishap, move on
from this and ensure a stronger internal processing of transactions.
Investigations further revealed that UBA’s Recovery Officer, Oladimeji Ojo and Barrister Akin Adesomoju (they supervised
the sale of recovered properties) initially had an agreement with the alleged
suspects that if they surrender all their properties, they will no longer be
prosecuted.
Surprisingly, few months after surrendering the properties, which they signed
off under duress and while in detention, the matter was still taken to court in
Abuja.
The investigation of the case initially started at
Lion Building, Lagos before it was moved to Panti and later, Abuja where again,
same matter just because UBA lawyers/ prosecutor just want to force prosecution
took the matter to different High courts in FCT.
UBA has already confiscated properties from the
suspects ( both those that are traceable and not traceable to the fraud) and
they have sold them for ridiculous prices (very suspicious) yet still put them
as evidence in the court of law.
The maxim goes, “He who comes to equity must approach
the court with clean hands”. It’s commonly understood that the maxim means that
a claimant should be deprived of all equitable remedies, because of some
dishonesty, misrepresentation, illegality or unfairness. Sometimes an
application of the principles means that the entire case is struck out or
summarily dismissed. This case can be likened to Maxim.
Source - Newscarte
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