Bank’s staff connives with fraudsters to steal over N20m from customers’ accounts

An employee of a bank and a UNN graduate, Christian Amechi, has been arrested for conniving with fraudsters to steal millions of naira from customers using a string of impersonators.

Amechi, until his arrest, was serving at the ATM customers service unit, at the bank’s head office in Victoria Island, He was arrested, last week, along with five other members of the syndicate.

Together, the gang had allegedly removed over N20m from accounts belonging to various customers. Those arrested include Oyozoje Joseph, 30; Nelson Matthew Eugari; Henry Omogbemi, 31; and Ene Mona Gabriel.

Luck ran against the banker after the police team arrested the leader of a gang of pickpockets, Akeem Apejoye, in Lagos. Akeem alleged that the gang’s interest was mainly the SIM cards of stolen phones.

Narrating how his gang removed several millions of naira from victims account, Christian said all that was needed for the illegal transfer to succeed is the customers SIM card, stressing that any account holder who does online transaction has his or her Bank Verification Number (BVN) number stored on his or her phone.

“I grew up in Ajegunle and I was introduced into the business by my friends known as Ose boy and DJ. The moment any member of the gang lays his hand on stolen SIM cards, they would dial the USSD number to access the owner’s BVN.

That is if the owner does online banking. Once this is done, they would send me the six last digits with which I can access the owner’s account to know how much is in the account. The gang can then transfer at least N200,000 per transaction into their own account.”

He also disclosed that, some times, the gang would do a welcome back of some of the SIM card. He said: “What happens in this case is that the original owner of the line would not be able to make or receive calls.

All calls or text messages on such numbers can only be accessed by the person who did the welcome back. The gang members are staff of telecommunication providers. These set of people are the ones who do the welcome back.” 📸: TheNation