Parallex Bank’s Out Sourced Staff Docked Over Alleged N749 Million Fraud

Parallex

OpenLife Nigeria reports that the Inspector General of Police has hauled an Outsourced staff of Parallex Bank, Abdullahi Soje Mohammed, before a Federal High Court in Lagos, for allegedly obtaining N14 million by false pretences.

Mohammed was alleged to have knowingly without authority caused financial loss to the bank to the tune of N14 Million when the bank suffered a glitch in its system.

In a two count charge filed before the court by Police Legal officer, it was allegedly stated that Abdullahi Soje Mohammed and others now at large with intent to defraud conspired with others and caused financial loss to Parallex Bank by obtaining N14 million by false pretence.

The defendant who pleaded not guilty was granted bail while the presiding Judge adjourned till next year for trial to commence.

In a petition titled “FRAUD IN EXCESS OF N749,000,000 MILLION COMMITTED AGAINST PARRALEX BANK BASED ON ALLEGED GLITCH IN GLOBAL ACCELEREC LIMITED NETWORK PLATFORM jointly signed on behalf of Parallex Bank,Head, Fraud Desk & Audit Inquiries, Chibueze Okereke and Chief Audit Executive Seyi Ogundipe, respectively sent to The Commissioner of Police,Police Special Fraud Unit Milverton Road Ikoyi Lagos, it was stated thus:

On Monday June 17, 2024, at about 8 am, two (2) of the Bank’s regional managers in the North observed some abnormal transactions from some Agents of the Bank’s Agency Network Banking. This was immediately escalated to the Network Platform owners-Global Accelerex Limited for investigation and prompt resolution.

Global Accelerex immediately went into an emergency investigation during which it was observed that the anomaly must have been triggered by a bug in their system due to one of the multiple release builds they pushed to the Network.

Invariably, this bug in their system triggered the payment of commission to Agents for Card Transfer transactions in sums that equate to the same transaction amount that was consummated by the Agents e.g.if an Agent requests for a card transfer of N200,000 the commission credited to the agent’s account would be the same amount N200,000.

These fraudulent commissions triggered to the Agents from the Global Accelerex Platform were debited from the bank’s Agency banking pool account from where all settlements for all Agent Banking Operations are consummated. This led to a total loss of about N749,000,000.00 (Seven Hundred & Forty-Nine Million Naira).

Based on the outcome of the investigation done by Global Accelerelex, below was the summary of their findings:
1. Number of Agents involved was stated as 233
2. The alleged bug/glitch started from May 24th but became rampant from 14 of June till 17th when it was flagged by the Bank.
3. The count of transactions involved was given as 3,000
4. The total exposure was given as N749,000,000 (Seven Hundred & Forty-Nine Million Naira)
5. The sum of N93 million still retained in the Agents Wallets has been blocked, while the sum of N52 million identified in some beneficiaries with the Bank has been restricted.

This fraud has greatly impacted negatively on the Bank’s Agency Banking transactions which has triggered huge customer dissatisfactions with severe reputational risk for the Bank. The Bank’s depositors’ and Shareholders’ funds has also been impacted by this fraud.

In view of the above circumstances, it is our humble request that your office cause a thorough investigation to be conducted in respect of the fraud that has been uncovered so that the perpetrators of the fraud can be brought to book in this regard.

The charge as filed before the court.

COUNT I:

That you Abdullahi Soje Mohammed ‘m’ and others now at large,sometime in June 2024, in Lagos:State within the jurisdiction of the judicial Division of the Federal High Court, with intent to defraud,did conspire amongst yourselves to commit a felony to wit obtaining the sum of N14,700,000.00(Fourteen Million Seven Hundred Thousand Naira by false pretence and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 27()(b) of the Cyber Crimes (Prohibition, Prevention etc.) Act, 2015 as Amended in 2024, Road along with Section 14(1) of the same Act.

COUNT TWO:

That you Abdullahi Soje Mohammed ‘m’ and others now at large,sometime in June 2024, in Lagos State,within the aforementioned Judicial Division of the Federal High Court, did knowingly and without authority cause financial lost to Parallax Bank Limited to the tune of N14,700,000.00 (Fourteen Million Seven Hundred Thousand Naira) by suppressing credit enters and other data held in Point Of Sales (POS)Machine/Computer in your capacity as Parallex Bank Limited Agency Banking Scheme, and thereby conferred economic benefit on yourselves by converting the money in question to your own use against Parallex Bank and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 14(1) of the Cyber Crimes (Prohibition, Prevention Etc.) Act. 2015 as Amended in 2024.

COUNT THREE :

That you Abdullah Soje Mohammed’m’ and others now at large,sometime in June 2024. in Lagos State, in the aforementioned converts or transfers, retains or takes possession or control of funds ought to have known that such funds is, or forms part of the proceeds of an unlawful Act and thereby committed an offence contrary to section 18 (3) (d) and punishable under Section 18(3) of the Money laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act,2022