How 4 bank staff allegedly stole N874m – EFCC’s witness tells court

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Thursday, presented its third witness in the trial of four Fidelity Bank employees for an alleged N874 million fraud before Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo of a Special Offences Court in Ikeja, Lagos.

More evidence was also presented against the defendants, including a DVD of the bank’s CCTV footage.

The defendants are: Olusegun Babasola, Abisola Ahmed, Uchechukwu Uma, Jude Aphaeus, and a non-staff of the bank, Omidiji Joseph,

The defendants are being prosecuted by the EFCC on two counts for their various roles in the alleged hacking of the bank’s database and cloning of more than 22 ATM cards used to steal and divert to personal use about N874 million belonging to five of the bank’s corporate customers – American International Insurance Company Limited (AIICO), Interswitch, OVH Energy Marketing Ltd, Fidelity Bank sinking fund account and FSL Securities Ltd.

They had pleaded “not guilty” to the charges, prompting their full-blown trial.

At today’s proceeding, the third prosecution witness, Chimdinma Peter, an operative of the EFCC narrated to the Court the findings of the EFCC’s investigation into the alleged fraud.

Led in evidence by the prosecuting counsel, Nnaemeka Omewa, the witness told the Court that the EFCC received a petition from Fidelity Bank on the alleged fraud and immediately swung into action.

He said: “Upon receipt, we commenced investigation into the alleged fraud, which we found out was perpetrated using the Postillion App.

“We accessed the banking app domiciled in the server to ascertain the IP address used. It pointed to a System domiciled at the Virtual Unit of the bank domiciled in Lagos.