An exclusive report by Meganews has brought Fidelity Bank Plc, a tier-2 lender in Nigeria, led by Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe as its chief executive officer, is in the news again for the wrong reason.
According to a Lagos High Court recently, staff members of Fidelity bank Plc hacked its database, cloned over 22 ATM cards and stole the sum of N874m from five corporate accounts registered in the bank, within 3 days.
The Head of Investigations Group of Internal Audit and Investigations Division of Fidelity, Onovae Oghenovo, told the court that the five corporate accounts which the said sum was withdrawn belong to the American International Insurance Company Limited (AIICO), Interswitch, OVH Energy Marketing Ltd, Fidelity bank sinking fund account and FSL Securities LTD.
Oghenovo, who testified before the court, said that four of their staff members, identified as Abisola Ahmed, Olusegun Babasola, Uchechukwu Uma and Jude Alphaeus, fraudulently primed and linked ATM debits cards to the corporate accounts and then made various ATM cash withdrawals from different ATM terminals, POS purchases, bill payments as well as ATM fund transfers.
Meanwhile, the four employees, who are currently facing a criminal trial, were docked and charged alongside one Adeowale Jeff Johnson (a businessman) on a 2-count charge of conspiracy and stealing by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
However, while led in evidence by the EFCC prosecutor, Nnaemeka Omewa, the witness said that between July 12, 2019, and July 15, 2019, the sum of N874m was fraudulently withdrawn from five accounts in Fidelity bank.
More so, the EFCC Counsel told the court that the offence committed by the defendants contravened Sections 278(1)(2) & 285(1) and 9(b) of the Criminal law of Lagos State, 2011.
While testifying, the banker said, “I know the first, second, third and fourth defendants in the dock, except the fifth one (referring to Johnson). The four defendants were employees of Fidelity bank and they all worked in the Virtual banking Unit.
“Sometime in July 2019, Babasola, who was in the virtual department, fraudulently accessed the victims’ accounts. When he was queried, he claimed he wasn’t the one that viewed the accounts. But we later found out that his private token was opened on his mobile phone.
“More so virtual bank doesn’t interface directly with customers but rely on request from the call centre unit.
“Babasola viewed the accounts from his mobile phone and soft tokens were generated to access the 5 victims accounts.
“On July 11, Ahmed also viewed the same five accounts. And upon query, he claimed he responded to a customer’s request. But upon enquiry, we discovered that no request was made.
“Also Uchechukwu viewed the account of FSL Securities LTD between 10th and 13th of July. My Lord, prior to July 11, none of the victims’ accounts had ATM cards. Again, between the 12th till 15th of July, Uchechukwu and Jude’s profiles were also used to enhance withdrawal limits of ATM cards. For example, an ATM card limit that has N150, 000 was enhanced to N150million”.
When asked if he could recall the amounts that were withdrawn from each victim’s account, the witness said, “The sum of N1.7m was withdrawn via cash from AIICO and N20 million was transferred to 3rd parties. Making it an estimated N22m withdrawal.
“The sum of N115, 260, 000 was withdrawn from Inter switch account. The cash sum of N61.8m was withdrawn from OVH Energy accounts, while N500, 000 was transferred to a third party. Also, N9m was transferred from the Fidelity bank sinking fund account. While N6, 257, 000 was withdrawn from the FSL Securities account and used to pay bills, N281m was withdrawn using ATM and N44m withdrawn using POS.
“When the bank found out about this theft, we quickly reported to the EFCC”.
At this point the EFCC prosecutor tendered the petition written to the commission, dated July 16, in evidence.
The matter was, however, adjourned till November 12 for a continuation of trial.
Recall, the bank was recently in the news when operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested officials of the bank for over N200m fraud.
According to the report, four employees of Fidelity Bank Plc, alongside eleven accomplices, are currently facing criminal trial before a Lagos High Court for allegedly defrauding the bank to the tune of N200 million.
In the suit number FHC/10/10089c/19 the four Fidelity Bank staff identified as Olusegun Babasola, Abisola Ahmed, Uchechukwu Uma and Jude Alphaeus, were charged alongside eleven others: Adeowale Jeff Johnson, Ogubiukwu Peace Chinenye, Olanrewaju Joseph, Alabi Adeola Abiodun, Umaru Hamsu, Olagbaju Oladayo, Afeez Mudashiru, Ayokanmi Oshagbami, Anyor Isaac Ushang, Bashir Olanrewaju and Lanre Yusuf.
