Police arrest bank workers for $2m fraud

Zenith Bank national headquarters
| credits: File copy

Three employees of Zenith Bank Plc national headquarters, Ajose Adeogun street, Victoria Island, Lagos State, have been arrested by the Special Anti Robbery Squad, Ikeja, Lagos for their alleged involvement in a $2m fraud.

Police sources told PUNCH Metro that a senior official of the bank, Ms. Olubukola Oritogun, and two others allegedly defrauded unsuspecting customers of the said sum. A fourth yet-to-be identifed person is said to be on the run.

 PUNCH Metro gathered that Oritogun and her accomplices were allegedly in the habit of informing wealthy customers who wanted to buy dollars that there was a dollar account in the bank that they could purchase them from.

The source, who requested anonymity said, “Oritogun would inform some persons that if they wanted to buy dollars, it was available in the bank. She would make the account details available to the customer. Unknown to the victim, the dollar account is owned by another customer of the bank.

“The victim would then ask his own contact in the bank to check the account. Once it has been confirmed that the account indeed has a certain amount of dollars, the victim would then transfer the naira equivalent of what he wanted to buy to  Oritogun in exchange for the dollars.”

She was said to have defrauded several persons in that manner until a complaint was lodged at SARS.

PUNCH Metro gathered that on the day of Oritogun’s arrest, she had already booked a flight to the United States and was preparing to flee the country.

It was learnt that the police had recovered N166m of the stolen funds.

The Lagos State Police Public Relations officer, DSP Ngozi Braide, said she would call our correspondent back whe she was contacted.

The bank’s spokesperson, Mr. Victor Adoji, when contacted, said, “We actually detected the fraud first. We subsequently made a report to the Special Fraud Unit and they have started investigation. Some of our employees were arrested in connection with the case.

“As of now, we have  feedback as regards the current state of investigation.”