New generation bank workers nabbed over N150m fraud

Folake Sokoya

The Police Special Fraud Unit (PSFU), on Monday in Lagos, announced the arrest of 11 suspected fraudsters, including three bankers with a new generation bank, over N150 million fraud.

The unit’s spokesman, ASP Lawal Audu confirmed the arrest to newsmen Ikoyi, Lagos, stressing that two of the suspects were employees of a network service provider.

The suspected bankers were Oyelade Shola-Isaac, 32, Osuolale Hammid, 40, and Akeem Adesina, 33, while the network service provider employees include Okpetu John, 29, Chukwumnoso Ifeanyi, 30 and Salako Abdulsalam, (ICT specialist), 30.

Other suspects were Ismaeel Salami, 49, Akinola Oghuan, 34, Sarumi Abubakar, 32, James Idagu, 56, and Sunday Okeke, 33.

He stressed that they were all arrested in Lagos, Ibadan and Ilorin.
Audu noted that the job of the bankers suspects was to provide the syndicate with information of the bank customers with funded accounts that were not into internet banking.

He said the network provider suspects assist to swap the sim cards (GSM numbers) of the targeted bank customers so that they will be unable to receive alert of any transactions on their accounts within the period that their accounts were being siphoned.

The spokesman said the suspects transferred the money siphoned into about 40 other accounts with ATM in different other banks.

Audu said that the suspects usually carry out their operations during the weekends and public holidays to evade being detected by the bank monitoring mechanisms or the owners of targeted funded accounts.

“The effort of the police team eventually paid off when the same group was holding their final meeting at eateries along Bode Thomas Street, Surulere, Lagos on the concluded plan to unleash another monumental fraud on unsuspecting customers.

“Their plan was to defraud other new generation banks between May 26 and 29, 2017. Detectives stormed the venue during which one of the major kingpins claimed to be Alhaji Ismaeel Salami and four members of the syndicate were arrested.

“Thirty five ATM cards affixed with account numbers and passwords were immediately recovered from them.

“It was, however, unveiled that this criminal syndicate usually sourced these bank ATM cards from their owners, especially among the vulnerable youths deceiving them to release their ATM cards, account numbers and passwords for eventual monetary rewards based on the amount their card receive,” he said.

The spokesman, therefore, advised members of the public to be careful of fraudsters activities, warning them against giving out bank detains to strangers.

Audu said the suspects will be charge to court soon.