Witness tells court how Fidelity Bank staff perfected N874m fraud

Peter Ige, the second prosecution witness in the trial of four staff of Fidelity Bank for alleged N874 million fraud, told the Lagos State Special Offences Court, Ikeja, how the defendants perpetrated the fraud.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arraigned the four bank’s staff – Olusegun Babasola, Abisola Ahmed, Uchechukwu Uma, and Jude Aphaeus alongside one Omidiji Joseph on a two-count charge of fraud.

The quintet were arraigned for hacking the bank’s database and cloned 22 Automated Teller Machine (ATM) to steal N874 million belonging to five corporate customers: American International Insurance Company Limited (AIICO); Interswitch; OVH Energy Marketing Limited, Fidelity Bank Sinking Fund Account and FSL Securities Limited.

The fraud was allegedly perpetrated within three days.

At Wednesday’s proceedings, Ige, who is an Information System Auditor with Fidelity Bank, revealed how his department was mobilized to investigate the “massive fraud.”

Led in evidence by the prosecuting counsel, Nnaemeka Omewa, the witness identified the four bank staff and gave details of his team’s findings.

He said: “On 15 July, 2019, as a System Auditor, my team was called upon to look at an instance of ATM fraud reported to the Internal Audit and to investigate the same.

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“We observed that the accounts were linked to a set of ATM cards, with their daily withdrawal limits increased from N150,000 to about N150 million.”

He said the frequency of withdrawal increased with time, adding that it aided the commission of the fraud.”

Ige added: “The investigation focused on the members of staff who had authorised privilege and login details to view the accounts of customers and also increase such frequency and limits on withdrawals.

“Normally, there should be a request either from the customer or another department requesting the services.

“In this case, from our investigation conducted, there was no evidence provided by the defendants to go into these accounts.”

Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo adjourned the matter till March 3 for the continuation of trial.

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