EFCC arrests bank staff for allegedly stealing N137m

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibadan zonal Office, has arrested one Olumide Agbabiaka, a sales agent with Fidelity Bank Plc for allegedly stealing N137million.

This is contained in a statement signed by the commission’s spokesperson, Mr Tony Orilade on Monday in Ibadan.

He said that Agbabiaka’s arrest was due to a petition filed by the bank’s Regional Security Officer and the Cluster Control and Compliance Manager.

Orilade said that the suspect allegedly suppressed, diverted and stole the money from a customer’s personal corporate account in Ibadan.

He said the suspect allegedly committed the offence between January 2017 and July.

He said the suspect, who was the account officer attached to the customer, had been visiting the business premises of the victim weekly to collect cash.

Orilade said the suspect was to remit same to the customer’s accounts domiciled in the bank’s Challenge branch.

He said the suspect instead of depositing the money at different times remitted only a portion and on many occasions diverted the whole sum to personal use.

“In order to cover its criminal acts, the suspect, according to the petition, would rather 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.”

He said that Agbabiaka’s alleged fraudulent deeds were later discovered prompting the bank to put up the petition.

“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.”

Orilade said that the suspect also gave part of the stolen money to people as friendly loans.

He said that some of the items had been recovered and registered as exhibits, saying Agbabiaka would be charged to court after investigations were concluded.