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Banker in EFCC custody over N45 million scam
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Font size: Published 05/04/2010 00:11:00 Edwin Olofu


The Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) has arrested a 40-year-old Afribank Plc official, Asmau A. Gaanda, who allegedly defrauded her bank to the tune of N44.5 million. The media head of the EFCC in Kano, Aroyehun Gbenga, who announced the arrest over the weekend, said the woman will soon be arraigned before a competent court of law in Kano.
Mr. Aroyehun said Mrs. Gaanda’s confessional statement included how, in one instance, she claimed to have handed out N13.4million to an unknown person as loan.
“She said she could not recognise the man, as he did not present any identification card at the point of payment. People may wonder what has happened to the customer procedure, the Regis Cope, and other measures that are required before customers make such large withdrawals.”
The EFCC official said the branch’s internal control mechanism completely broke down and staff routinely violated procedures. The accused, he said, did whatever she liked with customers accounts, including crediting one with the fund of another in order to perpetuate fraud. She also allegedly credited customers accounts without physical cash backing. This is known in the industry as ‘dry posting’.
“This is just the tip of iceberg of fraud perpetrated by Mrs. Gaanda and her co-conspirators in three branches of Afribank,” Mr. Aroyehun further said. “Investigation revealed that the fraud was committed over a long time without detection by the management of the bank and total amount involved is a whopping forty-four million, five-hundred and thirty-seven thousand, ninety-seven naira (N44,537,337,97k).

[img]http://news2.onlinenigeria.com/thumbnail.php?file=News-images/banker_854378615.jpg&size=article_small[/img]

“The thirteen million she allegedly gave to the unknown person came through seven accounts from which she made equally fraudulent withdrawals. The accounts were 058080483414 - N3,310,000.00; 0580805371419 - N1.5m; 0580806436417 -N1.7m; 0580807482412 - N3.6m; 058082602417 - N3m; 0580804703418 -N702, 000.00; Alarams - N1, 290.000.00. All these accounts were opened at the Kanti Kwari Market in Kano and the suspect was the Head of Traffic, a position that gave her the opportunity to open those accounts and withdrew money from them at will.”


Living above means
She was also accused of making withdrawals from several customers deposits; either alone or in collusion with other suspects such as Umar Garki, Maigeri Barde Adamu, and Maikudi Abba. Nine customers were involved in this scheming.
“Moreover, the suspects also practised fraudulent under-packaging of bundles of naira. For instance, they embedded N200 notes in N1000.00 and mixed N50 notes with packets of N100 bills,” the EFCC official said. “She stole customer’s chequebooks, forged their signatures, and withdrew money from their accounts without their knowledge. A case is the fraudulent withdrawal of N13. 912.000 from one account. In another case, she forged withdrawal slip of another customer and took N3.5m.
“The bank vault did not escape the itchy hands of this woman: she took money from it without authorisation, and whenever she needed it. Sometimes, she graciously put IOU notes there and even encouraged her co- conspirators to do it. The IOU notes depleted the vault to the tune of N6m.”
Mr. Aroyehun of the EFCC said he will soon charge Mrs. Gaanda to court for conspiracy, theft, forgery, and obtaining money by false pretence.
“This 40-year-old woman depicts the level of rot in the banking system, especially the non-observance of internal control mechanism and lack of thorough supervision,” he said. “A more fundamental issue is the infiltration of the banking system by rogues and fraudsters and the need for the subsector to do background checks on would-be employees. It also needs to quickly respond to early warning symptoms like employees living above their means.”

http://news2.onlinenigeria.com/news/crime/5230-Banker-EFCC-custody-over-N45-million-scam.html

Spyker:

EFCC always parade people, what has happened to "not guilty until proven guilty by a competent court". I am not in support of fraud but i am not also supporting the EFCC style of publishing this type of case without having a conviction. They continue this attitude for publicity at the detriment of the accused. If eventually the woman is not guilty, how will they remedies her battered image?
EFCC should do their job and get convictions before going public. When we begin to hear only convicted persons (not suspects), then we know that the fight against corruption is not selective and is working. For now, i will talk this as one of the many EFCC publicity schemes.

I think the bank has failed in their jobs if the EFCC should be doing their job now. What has gone wrong with the banking ethics?

spoilt:

I dont understand why they have to disclose the full account numbers she commited the frauds on. To encourage more fraud?

spicyhoney:

How can you put IOU in a vault, IOU's are normally given to tellers and not to the vault. I bet Afribank lacks checks and balances because one person does not even go into the vault alone nor have the combinations to the vault's lock. Its usually two people mostly the head of operations and the cash officer. I feel whatever had happened is as a result of the BACKWARD and inefficient banking done by Afribank. And what happened to CCTV? which is supposed to be viewed at all time by the branch's resident auditor, branch leader and head of Operations.

BlakkBoi:

This one no be matter !!!!!.

Do you know how much EFCC and police take as bribes from criminals and sweep the matter under the carpet ?. Nothing is new to me in Nigeria, it was unfortunate Bode George decided to play drums instead of giving checks which later got him humiliated. Ibori was wiser and bought up the presidency with 4billion, atelast it granted him temporal reprieve.

Only the the common man is regarded as a criminal. Visit the EFFC office in Awolowo and demand that they arrest someone owing you 100k and see if the person won't spend atleast 2 weeks in their detention. It's funny. They will try everything to convict the person and add it to their list of secured convictions. The people they convict are small boys on the street, whom they are supposed to send for counselling or find a way to make them productive.

I refuse to be a victim.

spicyhoney:

How can you put IOU in a vault, IOU's are normally given to tellers and not to the vault. I bet Afribank lacks checks and balances because one person does not even go into the vault alone nor have the combinations to the vault's lock. Its usually two people mostly the head of operations and the cash officer. I feel whatever had happened is as a result of the BACKWARD and inefficient banking done by Afribank. And what happened to CCTV? which is supposed to be viewed at all time by the branch's resident auditor, branch leader and head of Operations.