By Bayo Davids
The Nigerian police have accused Sterling Bank Plc of money laundering, fraudulent deductions, and other financial crimes against a Nigerian company, Maiden Systems Limited.
This was contained in a report presented to the House of Representative Committee on Public Petition during the hearing of Maiden Systems Ltd’s petition against Sterling Bank, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and Shell Petroleum in Abuja.
Maiden System Ltd. petitioned the Committee regarding alleged mismanagement, fraudulent debit, and misappropriation of funds from its account domiciled with Sterling Bank.
Presenting the report before the committee, the representatives of the Inspector General of Police, Kabiru Yahaya and Sunny Amison, both Chief Inspectors of Police said a $30m loan taken by Maiden Systems Ltd is the subject of the matter it investigated.
According to CSP Amison, a detective attached to the Criminal Investigation Department of the Nigeria Police Force, Maiden Systems have four accounts domiciled with Sterling Bank, two-dollar index accounts and two naira-indexed.
He said “We were saddled with the responsibility to investigate mismanagement, fraudulent debit, and misappropriation of funds from the account of Maiden Systems Limited by Sterling Bank.
“In the course of our investigation, findings emerged about the issue of non-issuance of statement of account, fraudulent debit, and misappropriation of funds. More importantly, Maiden Systems Limited raised the issue of accounts. There are four accounts operated by Sterling Bank Plc for Maiden Systems Limited. Two are U.S. dollar accounts, while two are Nigeria NGN accounts.
“Now, having regard to the complaint of Maiden Systems that it was denied the statement of account, we interfaced with an account officer, who gave us in writing that the company is being furnished with the statement of account. And I asked, how? He said electronically, or by short message service, But there’s no proof. There’s no proof to debunk that aspect of the allegation.
“Secondly, we discovered from the statement of account generated by the bank, not provided by the petitioner, or its counsel, or any third party. We looked at it holistically and saw the grey areas where there were discrepancies or where there were questions to be raised.”
According to CSP Amison, “We discovered a Debt Service Repayment Account where money is being used to service the loan.
“The loan offer as of 2012 was $30m. We need to understand it was restructured in 2017, with capital and interest to arrive at $30m
“Having regard to the account, we, a team of detectives, started seeing debits from Maiden System’s account for loan repayment. We took it upon ourselves to ask the account officer who first came before us to explain the loan repayment but he said it was a mere narration adopted while applying funds to the company’s loan account. We found this very vague and ambiguous.
“We discovered that the highest deduction, about US$28.3 million, was debited from this company’s account for loan repayment, but Sterling Bank has not provided an explanation.
He continued, “On September 29, 2016, the sum of$2.4m was debited from the company’s account with the Account Number 00148517716 for loan repayment. On November 14, 2016, the sum of $1.2m was equally debited from this same account for loan repayment.
“Again January 16, 2017, the sum of $28.30m was debited from the company’s account for loan repayment. And as I said, we’ve waited for the bank to provide account officers who have managed this account to throw more light on this. It is not our document.
“It is their document. The facts are before them. If somebody has managed that account before and is no longer an account officer, they could call them, and provide names since they are no longer in the bank.”
The detective police officer added that in the course of the investigation, the team asked one of the account officers to reveal how much of the loan had been paid and the amount left to be paid.
“One of the account officers specifically wrote that the outstanding balance was about $27.25m while the Executive Director of the bank gave us a figure of over $30m. That is to say, nothing has been paid, and nothing has been debited to clear the loan.
“We equally discovered what the bank captured in the statement of account, in-branch transfer, account to account. And we asked, what does the bank or the account officers mean by in-branch transfer, account to account?”
The police officers recommended that Sterling Bank be made to answer questions concerning alleged fraudulent deductions, money laundering and financial mismanagement among others.
Responding, the Chairman of the Commitee, Mike Etaba assured both parties that the report will be studied by the Committee while pledging that justice will be served.
“At the committee level, we will look at the Police report and I assure us that justice will prevail,” Etaba assured.