Regional Security Officer and the Cluster Control and Compliance Manager of the Fidelity Bank Plc, Ibadan zonal Office, has handed over one Olumide Agbabiaka, a sales agent of the bank to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for having allegedly stolen N137 million belonging to a bank’s customer.
Olumide Agbabiaka was alleged to have suppressed, diverted and stole the money from a customer’s personal corporate account in Ibadan and that the offence was committed between January and July 2017.
The suspect was the account officer attached to the customer who had been visiting the business premises of the victim weekly to collect cash which he was expected to lodge in the customer’s accounts, domiciled in the bank’s Challenge branch.
It was alleged that instead of depositing the money at different times, he remitted only a portion and on many occasions, diverted the whole sum to personal use, and that in order to cover the criminal acts, the suspect would issue fictitious bank slips to deceive the customer that he truly deposited the sums.
“This continued until the customer reviewed the statement of his account and reconciled same with the cash collection register.”
The petition, which the detecting officer wrote to the EFCC said that the fraudulent activities were later discovered, leading to him being handed over to the EFCC.
The EFCC’s spokesperson, Tony Orilade who confirmed the development today, September 16 in a statement, said: “so far, the EFCC investigators have established a prima facie case of diversion and stealing against the suspect.
“Further investigations also revealed that he had used the suppressed sums to build houses, purchase cars, invest in fixed deposits and insurance policies.”
Tony Orilade said that the suspect also gave part of the stolen money to people as friendly loans, adding that some of the items had been recovered and registered as exhibits.
He said that the suspect would be charged to court after investigations have been concluded.
