An alleged fraudster identified as Ifeanyi Nwaneri, was arraigned on Wednesday before Justice Olusola Ajibike Williams of the Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos by the prosecution counsel of EFCC, Lagos Zonal office, on a five-count charge bordering on stealing to the tune of N1.2billion with a POS.
The prosecution counsel, Chuks Igboerika, said Nwaneri sometime in 2017 approached Access Bank to enable the POS device for international transactions, and he was obliged. Furthermore, the counsel said between July 30, 2017 and September 18, 2017, N1.2billion entered into Nwaneri’s account.
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 (Twenty-five Million Naira only), 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 (Seventeen Million, One Hundred Thousand Naira) only property of Access Bank Plc.”
Seeing the inflow, the bank inquired from Nwaneri the business he was into, which he said was ‘Precious Stone’ and automobile parts. He said his customers were foreigners. He managed to move some of the money into different bank accounts.
However Access Bank later received a mail from Interswitch, who made a declaration of fraud in the transactions of POS belonging to the defendant, and further alleged that there was no authorization for the transactions from the legitimate owners of the money involved.
“He (Nnaweri) transferred N508million to other banks, leaving a credit of about N677million in the account with Access Bank,” the said the bank manager, who is also a prosecution witness.
The suspect who pleaded “not guilty”, was granted N5 million bail and two sureties in like sum, as the case adjourned to April 23 and 27, 2018.
