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The National Investment Bank (NIB), has been accused of shielding some of its staff, Bright Addison Addai and Nukunu Aspect Agbenya, after they schemed to withdraw some huge sums of money from the bank.
They were successful in using cloned AMT cards to siphon huge sums of the money from the bank’s vending machines across the country.
The two individuals, have had the connivance of officers, who have been traced to the National Security Secretariat and the Ghana Immigration Service respectively.
Another attempt to used cloned cheque with GHc3.5 million by Bright Addison Addai, from the account of the Energy Ministry to a company called Guma Oil and Gas Limited at the NIB, only resulted in his dismissal. The NIB management, according to insiders, believes in cover up, rather than investigations, arrests and prosecution.
They don’t want the state bank in the news for the wrong reasons, especially stealing of depositors’ money.
The Managing Director (MD) of Guma Oil and Gas Limited, Fuseini Abdulai, is facing fraud charges after the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) arrested him, Addison and one other.
Mr Addison Addai, until recently worked with the bank at it Law Court branch in Accra.
However, after his cover was blown by another bank over the attempted massive thievery, the NIB, only relieved him of his post without handing him over to the Police for investigation and onward prosecution.
The Herald is informed that, it took the initiative of Nigerian bank, Zenith Bank, to raise alarm over the attempted stealing with cloned cheque which had signatures of Ministry of Energy’s officials forged and put in the NIB system and submitted to Zenith Bank for payment.
The Herald, has seen documentation showing that the NIB, only dismissed Bright Addisson on June 24, 2020. But after his removal, Nukunu Aspect Agbenya, was busted over the cloned ATM cards, and mentioned Addison as the one who gave him authorization to request for the cards from the NIB’s E-banking Department.
Nukunu Aspect Agbenya, reportedly mentioned Addison, one Stella Boateng an Immigration Officer and one Christopher Paul Topare, a Police officer seconded to the National Security as an operative, as his collaborators, but The Herald’s impeccable information is that NIB, only got him to write police statement, however, but there was no effort to arrest and question his accomplices.
Addison and his accomplices in the GHC3.5 million case, had used software technology, to prepare a cloned cheque and printed the account number, cheque number and signatures on an original cheque of the NIB, to be drawn on the account of the Ministry of Energy, but the deal could not materialize at the last minute.
“The amount was not lost, they couldn’t cash it, but they are facing the full rigours of the law,” a source told graphic online on issue of the GHC3.5 million cloned cheque.
But The Herald’s investigation had shown that, Bright Addion’s picture was merely published in the June edition of the NIB HR Newsletter under the heading dismissal.
It said Bright Addison Addai, Law Court Branch, dismissed on June 24, 2020 for involvement in an unsuccessful cloned cheque transaction of GHS3.54 million”.
Indeed, insiders say no further action was taken on the case when he was discovered to be involved in the cloned ATM case as well.
Last month, The Herald, had reported about a massive hit on some prominent commercial banks in the country through counterfeited ATM cards, leading to the withdrawal of some huge sums of money from their vending machines.
The situation, affected banks such as the NIB, Ghana Commercial bank (GCB), Zenith Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, among others.
At as yesterday, the issue which has become an utmost secret in the industry, has also been reduced to a joke with fears that businesses of the banks, will suffer if the information is made public.
The bankers are laugh about how successful some of the commercial banks have been able to cover up the story while put in place effort to curb a further hit but others have not done anything about the situation. Insiders, fear this attitude could spell doom for the industry.
The Herald, gathered July, had been one of the busiest periods for operatives of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) at the Police Headquarters in Accra with the Commercial Crime Department, interrogating some staff of the banks, who are suspected to have played major roles in facilitating the fraud.
In what appears to be the work of a syndicate which includes police officers, cloned cards were used to siphon money from the ATM machines at various times and from various machines in some instances.
In other instances, secret codes or profiles of some senior bank officials of the banks who were on leave, strangely entered the system and enabled the criminal-minded individuals to get access to money.
The situation, has led to some of the banks shutting down their money dispensers abruptly, to change secret codes and prevent the syndicate from having further access to their system. But some of the banks are treating the issue as business as usual.
The Herald is informed that, this week, will also see more staff of the various banks taken turns at the Commercial Crime Division to answer additional questions on the massive theft, some of which occurred outside the country but on the banks’, platforms using Visa and Master Cards.
In the case of one of the banks, The Herald gathered that the syndicate got its ATM machines to be disbursing money openly from 12 midnight to the surprise of many. including customers who had gone to the machines to withdraw cash.
Some of these incidents, were captured by the CCTV cameras installed in some of the banks. Few arrests have been made because the syndicate is believed to have hit the systems from unknown locations.
In the case of one of the banks which was worse hit, its systems were entered from locations outside Ghana, and officials of this particular bank, are reporting that they lost as much as GHc4 million.
But only sent home a few staff over the fraud.Meanwhile, GCB, has since sent notice to its customers over the matter.
The notice issued sometime last week read “Valued Customer, Kindly be informed that our ATMS are facing stability challenges at the moment. We are working in earnest to normalize the situation. In the interim, our alternate channels: Internet and Mobile Banking including G-Money platforms are however, available. Any inconvenience from this is regretted”.
More to come!
