{"id":78692,"date":"2021-02-22T16:43:29","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T15:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=78692"},"modified":"2021-02-22T16:43:29","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T15:43:29","slug":"n179billion-fraud-how-akingbola-bypassed-protocols-to-transfer-fund-offshore-witness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/news\/n179billion-fraud-how-akingbola-bypassed-protocols-to-transfer-fund-offshore-witness\/","title":{"rendered":"N179billion Fraud: How Akingbola Bypassed Protocols to Transfer Fund Offshore – Witness"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
The ongoing trial of Erastus Akingbola, a former Group Managing Director
\nof the defunct Intercontinental Bank, continued on February 19, 2021
\nbefore Justice A.O. Faji of a Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos with a
\nwitness of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Babatunde
\nAro, narrating how the defendant allegedly bypassed banking protocols to
\ntransfer $11.8million and \u00a38.54million offshore without recourse to the
\nbank’s standard procedures.<\/p>\n

Akingbola is being prosecuted by the EFCC for an alleged N179billion
\nfraud committed by him while he held sway at the Bank. He is alleged to
\nhave perpetrated the fraud using suspicious financial transactions. He
\npleaded “not guilty” to the allegations.<\/p>\n

Testifying as the fourth prosecution witness, Aro, who works with Access
\nBank Plc, as Head, Global Compliance Advisory, told the Court that he
\nwas part of an audit team that investigated a number of suspicious
\nforeign transactions including the ones involving the $11.8million and
\n\u00a38.54million. It will be recalled that Access Bank acquired
\nIntercontinental Bank when it became financially distressed.<\/p>\n

Led in evidence by Rotimi Jacobs, SAN, the witness who then worked at
\nIntercontinental Bank, told the Court that around November\/December 2009
\nhe was coopted into a team set up in internal audit “to review and
\ninvestigate some foreign transactions”.<\/p>\n

According to him, in the course of investigating the suspicious
\ntransactions, it was uncovered that: “On the 11th March 2009, the sum of
\n\u00a38.54million was transferred from the bank’s Deutshe Bank Nostro account
\nto a certain Messrs Fugler Solicitors on the instruction of Dr. Erastus
\nAkingbola.<\/p>\n

“The instruction was not signed and at that time his Domiciliary account
\nwith the bank had $19 and \u00a310,000.<\/p>\n

“The Visa Card account was also not funded at that time, so also the
\nNaira account of Dr. Erastus Akingbola with the bank did not have the
\nequivalent of \u00a38.54million.”<\/p>\n

He further told the Court that the team of internal auditors found out
\nthat the bank’s Nostro account with Deutsche Bank was debited to the
\ntune of $9.8million and a corresponding \u00a37.1million was put in the
\nbank’s GBP Deutsche Bank Nostro account.<\/p>\n

He said: “Another $1.98million was observed taken from same dollar
\nDeutsche Bank Nostro account of the bank and a corresponding \u00a31.4million
\nput in the bank’s GBP Deutsche Bank Nostro account.<\/p>\n

“The addition of the $9.8million and $1.98million will give you
\n$11.8million while \u00a37.1million and \u00a31.44million will give \u00a38.54million.<\/p>\n

“However, there were no corresponding amounts in the account of Dr.
\nAkingbola at these times, and the instruction with which the transfer
\nwas effected was unsigned.”<\/p>\n

He further added that “contrary to normal procedures for such
\ntransactions, there were no corresponding deduction of charges from Dr.
\nErastus Akingbola’s account before effecting the payments”.<\/p>\n

Identifying the bank statements of the said transactions in Exhibit L,
\nhe noted that “the authenticated message transmitted to the
\ncorrespondent bank showed the sender as Intercontinental Bank, and the
\nreceiver as Deutsche Bank.<\/p>\n

“The ordering customer on the document being Dr. Erastus Akingbola and
\nit shows the beneficiary bank account as Fugler’s Client Account.<\/p>\n

“Details of charges was stated as OUR meaning the person sending will
\npay to both himself and party sending the money to.”<\/p>\n

While noting that Akingbola was the Group Managing Director of the bank
\nat the time he gave the instruction, he stressed that the said
\ninstruction which was authorised by a manager at the bank, ought to
\nnormally have been declined.<\/p>\n

He said: “Normally an instruction without a signature will be returned
\nto the customer, or the customer will be asked to come and sign else the
\nbank will return it and not process it.<\/p>\n

“Even if it is after verifying his position with the bank, the
\ntransaction will be declined on the basis of insufficient funds.”<\/p>\n

The case has been adjourned till March 1, 2021.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ongoing trial of Erastus Akingbola, a former Group Managing Director of the defunct Intercontinental Bank, continued on February 19, 2021 before Justice A.O. Faji of a Federal High Court,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nN179billion Fraud: How Akingbola Bypassed Protocols to Transfer Fund Offshore - Witness - Pointblank News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/news\/n179billion-fraud-how-akingbola-bypassed-protocols-to-transfer-fund-offshore-witness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"N179billion Fraud: How Akingbola Bypassed Protocols to Transfer Fund Offshore - Witness - Pointblank News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The ongoing trial of Erastus Akingbola, a former Group Managing Director of the defunct Intercontinental Bank, continued on February 19, 2021 before Justice A.O. 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