Nigerians Panic As First Bank Workers Runs Away With ₦40 Billion

…First Bank begins swift recovery

A staff of First Bank Nigeria Plc, is on the run after allegedly diverting ₦40 billion into private accounts one of which belongs to his wife.

Topnewsnaija understands that First Bank with a market capitalisation of ₦829 billion has begun legal action to recover “huge sums of money” allegedly diverted by an employee at a head office team in Iganmu, Lagos.

The employee, currently on the run, allegedly moved the monies to 98 bank accounts designated as first beneficiaries, including his wife’s.

First Bank obtained three court orders between April 4–8, 2024, to block hundreds of bank accounts that were allegedly receiving the stolen monies after reporting the problem to the Nigerian Police Force on March 25, 2024.

Although the first sum found to be diverted was approximately ₦12 billion, according to three people with direct knowledge of the situation, it is currently estimated to be around ₦40 billion ($29 million).

According to a bank employee with knowledge of the situation, the manager of the bank’s electronic goods team, Tijani Muiz Adeyinka, was authorized by court documents to handle client reversals. It implied that he was in charge of an account from which he could credit merchant accounts and handle such reversals.

Instead, Muiz reportedly utilized that power to credit consumer requests for reversals to a merchant under his control. He purportedly did not require any more authorizations because he was the team’s final line of authorization, which allowed him to continue misappropriating client monies for nearly two years without being discovered.

His plot was eventually uncovered when a client filed a complaint, which was then forwarded to the internal control department of the bank. After identifying multiple questionable transactions, the control unit informed the authorities.

“We hereby bring to your notice the discovery of fraudulent transactions into various transactions within and outside the bank and request your good offices to set up the machinery of investigation in place with a view to unravel the circumstances surrounding the said fraud and get the culprits apprehended to face the wrath of the law,” read a letter dated May 10, 2024, from the Bank to the Lagos State Commissioner of Police.

“I discovered that one Muiz Tijani Adeyinka, a former staff of the Bank was involved in the nefarious posting of fraudulent transactions,” read a statement from the investigating Police officer in charge of the case signed March 26, 2024.

“It was discovered that he made some fraudulent transactions to his wife’s account number (name withheld) domiciled with another Bank, which in turn transferred to other beneficiaries totalling thirty-four accounts which also gave birth to second beneficiaries domiciled with other banks totalling 1,190 accounts,” the statement added.

The amount of money that was taken was not disclosed by the Bank in any of the numerous judicial filings or complaints. Along with requesting that the Police “unravel the circumstances surrounding the fraud,” it remained mute on how the money was acquired.

Fraud is still a major problem in Nigeria’s financial services sector, even though there was a decrease in incidents reported in Q1 2024. The largest banks in the nation are frequently the target of fraud assaults, despite fintech firms garnering disproportionate attention. According to a BusinessDay article, in 2023, Fidelity Bank lost ₦2.5 billion in three incidences, and Access Bank lost ₦6.15 billion due to fraud.

On April 8, a Federal High Court in Lagos issued an order for the Bank to restrict the bank accounts of the first and second beneficiaries of the cash that was obtained illegally.

The Bank also received further orders to block further accounts thought to be connected to the event, dated April 8 and May 5, from high courts in Jalingo and Lagos.

An anonymous email revealing the bank accounts of numerous cryptocurrency traders claimed that one of the initial beneficiary accounts spent some of the stolen money to purchase the stablecoin USDT from others. TechCabal received the email.

These traders denied knowing the money they got was scam proceeds and insisted that their sole role was selling USDT. As of the time of this article, they were embroiled in a legal dispute with the bank over account limits.