First Bank, a Nigerian bank with a market capitalisation of ₦829 billion has begun legal action to recover “huge sums of money” allegedly diverted by an employee at a head office team in Iganmu, Lagos. The employee, now on the run, allegedly diverted those funds to 98 bank accounts classified as first beneficiaries, including his wife’s.
The bank reported the incident to the Nigerian Police Force on March 25, 2024, and obtained three court orders between April 4–8, 2024 to block hundreds of bank accounts believed to have received the stolen funds.
According to TechCabal, Three people with direct knowledge of the incident told them that while the initial amount discovered to be diverted was around ₦12 billion, it now stands at around ₦40 billion ($29 million).
As a manager on the electronic products team at First Bank, the employee, identified by court documents as Tijani Muiz Adeyinka was authorised to process reversals for customers, said one First Bank employee with knowledge of the matter. It meant he controlled an account with which he processed those reversals and could credit merchant accounts.
Muiz allegedly used that authority to instead credit customer reversal requests to a merchant he controlled. As the last line of authorisation on the team, he allegedly did not need any further approvals, it allowed him to carry on diverting customer funds for almost two years without detection.
His scheme was eventually discovered when a customer made a complaint that was eventually escalated to the bank’s internal control unit. The control unit discovered several suspicious transactions and reported to the police.
“We hereby bring to your notice the discovery of fraudulent transactions into various transactions within and outside the bank and request your good offices to set up the machinery of investigation in place with a view to unravel the circumstances surrounding the said fraud and get the culprits apprehending to face the wrath of the law,” read a letter dated May 10, 2024, from First bank to the Lagos State Commissioner of Police.
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