FEMI ABIOLA
Lately, the activities of fraudsters have been on the increase across the globe. For instance, just recently, the Financial Conduct Authority found that the United Kingdom saw an increase of 81 per cent in forex scams between 2019 and 2021. This totals to a whopping 10,000 Forex scams in the UK alone since 2019.
Though, similar data may not have been recorded in Nigeria, based on several complaints made to the EFCC and the CBN and investigation by First News, findings revealed that hundreds of Nigerians, who are banks customers, have also been scammed and ripped off their hard earned money. We found that most of them are vulnerable people, especially elderly customers.
Victims recount experience
Felicia Adeniji, 65, is a retired teacher and a depositor with one of the Nigerian banks, which has its head office on Marina, Lagos. The mother of two was shocked last year, when she got a call from a man, who claimed to be her new account officer, requesting for a One Time Password (OTP), which he claimed was sent to her phone a few minutes earlier.
Ignorant Adeniji fell for the trap, as she did not hesitate to share the information with the caller after he had answered a few security questions like her account number, digits on her ATM card, and Date of Birth.
She said, “I had no reason to doubt him after providing the answers. I never understood what he was up to and what the OTP meant and why he asked me to delete it immediately after I shared it with him. A few minutes later, I got a debit alert of N40, 000 three times in about 15 minutes, which was my pension for the month.
“At that point, I started sweating and knew I had fallen victim to fraudsters. But what I still don’t understand is how he got my account number and other personal details.”
Tolulope Elijah, 60, a retiree from the Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and a victim of similar fraud recounted similar experience. The retired civil servant is a depositor with one of the Tier-1 banks, which has its headquarters around Victoria Island, Lagos.
In his own case, Elijah had declined the offer of an ATM card through her account officer before travelling out of the country. The account officer had then proceeded to forge the customer’s signature to request the ATM card. He did not stop at that, as he also allegedly connived with some other colleagues to apply for a loan on the poor retiree’s behalf.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I got debit alerts that a sum of N150,000 was deducted from my account within three days. As if that was not enough, I got another alert, as my account was credited with the sum of N200,000. The narration read that the fund was a loan I had applied for. But shockingly, I never applied for any. By the next morning, the money had been withdrawn from my account by an unknown person. I could not have returned to Nigeria because of that, as I had to be abroad for six months. At the end of the next month, my account was debited as part of the refund of the loan. How that happened, can only be traced to my account officer,” she recalled.
Adeniji and Elijah are only two of several bank depositors, especially elderly citizens, who have been fleeced by fraudsters masquerading as bank staff or who are currently paying for loan facilities they never applied for or collected. These crimes are unmistakably and increasingly targeting a specific class of people – vulnerable elderly people.
Ex-bankers share their experience
Sources across top commercial banks revealed that many bankers engage in various fraudulent activities as a result of laxity on the part of some officials in the internal control departments at various levels.
First News found that many of these frauds were perpetrated by third parties in connivance with insiders, targeting mostly elderly customers within the 60-70 years age bracket, who may expectedly not be tech-savvy. This is usually done by requesting such unsuspecting customers to provide vital information such as their Personal Identification Number (PIN), which the fraudsters then use to debit their accounts.
A former Manager of one of the Tier-1 banks, in an exclusive interview explained that three of the staff of the bank in Sokoto were arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in March 2020. The bankers were arrested for conspiring to steal the sum of N1.2 million from a customer’s account and were said to have done so by issuing an ATM card in the customer’s name to an impostor, who then proceeded to clean out the account.
Although part of the money was later recovered by security agents, First News investigations revealed that the system is beset with several other unrepentant fraudsters still plying their craft to the detriment of unsuspecting customers.
The alleged members of this syndicate were in March, arraigned before a Judge of the State High Court in Uyo on a 23-count charge bordering on conspiracy, forgery, obtaining by false pretence and criminal conversion of depositors’ funds to the tune of over N37.6 million.
One of the accused persons was found by the EFCC to have used his position as the Head, Operations and Transaction Service and Delivery, to collude with third parties to establish the syndicate which specialised in perpetrating fraudulent transactions and deductions from customers’ bank accounts.
Anti-graft agency, EFCC speaks
Head of Media, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr Wilson Uwujaren, disclosed that the anti-graft agency had prosecuted scores of bankers, who had either swindled depositors or the banks in different cases.
He added that there are yet more cases pending in Federal High Courts in Port Harcourt, Rivers, Yenagoa, Bayelsa, Edo, and Lagos States, among others.
“What happens is that when a staff of the bank is involved in such activities, the bank takes the person out of the system through dismissal. But now, we are going after the banks and the personnel used to perpetrate such fraud,” he said.
Bottom line
Banks must fine-tune their internal control processes to better protect their customers as their failure to do this would be costly.
First News investigations, however, found that another factor that must have contributed to the surge in financial crimes and bank fraud is the fact that Mobile adoption in Nigeria has risen over the last half a decade as the Central Bank’s policies on financial inclusions have increased reliance on mobile phones as a tool for conducting banking activities.
Data obtained from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS), stated that Mobile transactions in Nigeria (mobile & USSD) surged by 82.6 per cent in 2020 to stand at 1.69 billion compared to 928.86 million recorded in the previous year.
In all, despite this heavy reliance on mobile as a strategic tool for financial inclusion, fraudsters are also benefiting just like the banks.