- Ifeanyi Nwaneri is currently facing charges for allegedly fraudulently withdrawing N1.2 billion using a POS issued by his bank
- Nwaneri was arraigned before Justice Olusola Ajibike Williams of the special offences court
- The court also heard the testimonies of a witness in the case
Ifeanyi Nwaneri, a Nigerian, has been arraigned by the Lagos zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) before Justice Olusola Ajibike Williams of the special offences court sitting in Ikeja, on a five-count charge bordering on alleged stealing to the tune of N1.2 billion.
Nwaneri, according to the EFCC, is a customer with Access Bank Plc and was alleged to have fraudulently carried out several transactions on Point of Sales (POS) terminal issued to him by the bank.
One of the counts reads: “That you, Ifeanyi Nwaneri, sometime between September 1 and 4, 2017, at Lagos within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, dishonestly converted for the use of Sessy Global Ventures the sum of N25, 000, 000.00, property of Access Bank Plc.”
Another count reads: "That you, Ifeanyi Nwaneri, sometime between August 15 and September 12, 2017, at Lagos within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, dishonestly converted for the use of Omede Shedu Silas the sum of N17, 000, 000.00 only property of Access Bank Plc.”
After pleading not guilty, the prosecution counsel, Nnemeka Omewa, urged the court to allow his trial begin immediately while Nwaneri be remand in prison custody pending the determination of the charges levelled against him.
However, counsel to the defendant, John Don, informed the court of a pending application for bail on behalf of his client and therefore prayed the court to do justice to it.
Ifeanyi Nwaneri, the suspect. Credit: EFCC
Justice Williams granted the defendant bail in the sum of N 5million with two sureties in like sum with a condition that one of the sureties must be a relation to the defendant and must own a landed property within the jurisdiction of the court.
Justice Williams thereafter asked the prosecution counsel to call his witness in the matter.
The first prosecution witness, Chuks Igboerika, a manager with Access Bank Plc, told the court that the defendant had approached the bank sometime in March, 2017 for the issuance of a POS terminal and requested that the POS machine should be enabled in such a way that it would accept international cards, which he was eventually granted.
The witness said after that, the defendant started receiving huge inflows into his account through his international cards on July 30, 2017 adding that he consistently received money from July, 2017 to September 18, 2017 to the tune of N1.2 billion.
“When we discovered how money was being credited into Ifeanyi’s account with Access Bank, he was engaged by the relationship team unit of Access Bank to know the nature of the work he did that could have warranted the large sums of money that he had in his account.
He told the team that he deals in ‘precious stone’, in addition to dealing in automobile parts. He also said that his customers were foreigners.
“As the money came into his account, he transferred some into different bank accounts. He has so far transferred N508million to other banks, leaving a credit of about N677million in the account with Access Bank,” the witness said.
The witness said Access Bank later received a mail from Interswitch in which it made declaration of fraud in the transactions of POS belonging to the defendant and the fact that there was no authorization for the transactions from the legitimate owners of the money involved.
Investigations, however, revealed that the defendant carried out the transactions with the VISA international card and when the bank asked the defendant to produce the POS machine issued to him, he said it was not with him.
It was also revealed that when Access Bank asked Interswitch to produce ‘chargebacks’-complaints from the persons who lost money so as to declare the transactions fraudulent, it could not produce any.
The loophole was discovered by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) after Access Bank reported the transactions.
“It was revealed that Interswitch was hoarding the debits entries in its system records without passing the entries to the appropriate channels, which were the real card holders who have allegedly parted with their money
“An international POS transaction must go through Interswitch, then to the card issuing company which, in this case, is VISA card. Then, the transaction must reflect to the card holder and go back through the same channel to the bank before a transaction can be confirmed approved.
“And if a transaction was declined or not approved, it goes through the same channel. But in this case, it was discovered by CBN that the transactions done by the defendant started and ended between the defendant and Interswitch,” he said.
The witness told the court that all the authorized companies involved in an international POS transaction were invited to review the fraud independently.
“They all came to the verdict that the fraudulent transactions done by the defendant were debited from Access Bank authorized by Interswitch,” the witness said.
During cross-examination by the defence counsel, the witness told the court that it was at the point of interrogation that the defendant told the bank what he does for a living.
But the defence counsel pointed out that it was wrong of a financial institution to have failed to do that from the outset.
The case was adjourned to April 23 and 27, 2018 for continuation of trial.
Tags:
NAIJA NEWS