How Bankers Conspire With Fraudsters To Defraud Customers – EFCC

Agency Report

Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have revealed how bank staff conspires with fraudsters to defraud customers of their hard-earned money.

This was revealed during a recent EFCC Connect, a Twitter discussion programme, where some officers of the commission were invited to speak.

Ms. Eje, convener of the programme, disclosed that EFCC had arrested several bankers due to their involvement in fraudulent deals.

She said, “There are complaints in some quarters that some unscrupulous elements have infiltrated the banking sector and are duping people.

“And these are done by some in-house personalities (bankers themselves) who use banks as their decoy to commit these financial and economic crimes.”

Speaking about such fraudulent acts by bankers during the discussion, Damilola Ajayi, a Chief Superintendent, said the EFCC had received many petitions alleging that some bankers conspired with internal and external bodies to commit fraud.

She said there are different forms of conspiracies that bankers commit which include divulging sensitive information about customers and banks.

She added: “Customers go to the banks and lay some complaints, and out of ignorance they divulge some account details including ATM details, and before they know it they begin to receive some debit alerts.”

Another operative, Nura Buhari, who is EFCC’s Head of Cybercrime, also explained how frauds are perpetrated by bankers with the help of fraudsters.

He said for a successful banking fraud to be carried out, “there’s always an insider from the bank.”

He said, “Some innocent bankers are recruited, while others are willing accomplices who break some rules within the banking system. There are some core banking rules that they are not supposed to break, but you find out that they go the extra mile to break these rules and try to cut some corners and have some accounts opened.

“They have their IT rules and other core banking policies. The prevailing trend is divided into three crime categories.”

He said 90 percent of bankers open Tier-One accounts, which is not supposed to receive more than N250,000 in a month.

“But in the Tier-One account, you find out that because some of the staff have compromised it, they can receive more than N500,000.000 in a day and withdraw the same amount the same day. That is where the compromise of staff involvement comes in.

“You realise that you’re supposed to open a Tier-One account, but they go on and open a standard account for you. Definitely, if a banker does that negligently or not, such person is liable and will be dealt with by the EFCC,” he said.

Nura also said that sometimes the bank staff dish out banking information of some customers from the banks they work with to the fraudsters.

He added that the fraudsters sometimes will tell the bankers they need an account that has some certain amount of money in it, “and once they get that, their next move is how to move the money in it.

“The banker will now give out the information and that is his/her role in it because sometimes they do division of labour.

“When they need to break into a bank, they have someone that will give them the information they need, another person to move in and connect the computers inside, and so on.

“They always need someone that will do something. So, it may seem that you have done nothing wrong with the information you gave, but you’ve taken them closer and closer especially now that the bank has moved digital.”

Nura also explained why bank robberies are no longer common as they used to be, saying “When last did you hear about bank robberies? Nobody goes to the bank because they cannot steal more than N50 million from a bank robbery, but when they do an online attack, they can get away with more than that, and so a lot of people (fraudsters) started running into that.

“So we need to focus especially on the bank staff. As a bank staff, you’re the first person that will be identified and picked.

“When you look at the customer’s side, there are information you don’t disclose anyhow because there is what we call social engineering. And that is the first interview the fraudster will have with you presenting himself as the banker. He is just doing social engineering to get your information.”

He said the information they get from a victim will engineer their next move which is “data compromise.”

Recall on 8th October 2022, THE WHISTLER reported a petition written by one Muhammad Sadiq Abubakar, a bank account holder with the United Bank for Africa (UBA) in Gombe, over alleged fraudulent withdrawal from his account.

Also, on October 14, 2022, the EFCC arrested 12 bankers for insider fraud in Enugu.

The Commission’s preliminary investigations indicated that the suspects stole funds from some dormant accounts in a branch of an old generation bank in Enugu.

According to the Commission, the stolen funds were transferred from the dormant accounts to various beneficiaries, and the principal beneficiary was also identified.