Police hunt for Zenith bank staff who hacked into customers’ accounts, stole N3m

A staff with Zenith Bank, is presently on the run, after other members of his syndicate were arrested by the police in Lagos State for stealing customers’ funds.

The staff simply identified as Bunmi was said to have hacked the accounts of customers of the bank, transferring various sums into several accounts, unknown to the owners, to be picked up by his accomplices.

The bubble burst after the bank froze the accounts where the monies were being transferred to after the account owners from which the funds were being deducted laid complaints, of the illegal act.

The bank, in an effort to get to the root of the matter, was said to have handed over the account owners where the funds were being sent over to the police for investigations, after they visited the bank to complain of the development.

Police investigations revealed that Bunmi, after hacking into the bank’s system, made his accomplices obtain account numbers of individuals to whom the transfers could be made, which they collected via ATM machines and shared.

As at the time of their arrest, they had collected, and shared about N3 million Naira through their nefarious actions.

According to the spokesperson for Zone 2 police command, CSP Dolapo Badmos, two others, who are accomplices of Bunmi, namely Babalola Akinyele, aka Olumba; and Adeshina Adenekan, aka Oluwo Ake were arrested in the course of investigations.

According to her, the two men tricked the account owners into releasing their account numbers, adding that efforts were on to apprehend Bunmi.

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“Between November 2017 and January 2018, the Zone 2 Police Command, through its Zonal Intervention Squad, arrested two suspects who were members of a fraud syndicate. They specialised in hacking into bank accounts.

“One of the suspects, Babalola Akinyele, operated with one Bunmi, a worker at Zenith Bank. Bunmi’s role is to hack into customers’ accounts and transfer money into different bank accounts supplied by Adeshina Adenekan, who thereafter withdraws the money with different Automated Teller Machine cards and returns same to the syndicate.

“Akinyele and Adenekan receive 10 per cent each of the proceeds from Bunmi, the arrowhead of the fraud. They withdrew the money with ATM cards because they did not want to enter into banking halls and be caught. So far, N3million has been traced to them.

“We urge members of the public to be careful and not disclose their Bank Verification Numbers and phone numbers to strangers because these are the things they use to access funds. The case is under investigation and effort is on to arrest the bank worker, who is at large.”

One of the arrested suspects, Akinyele, 35, an indigene of Ondo State claimed to be working for a bet company, and that he met Bunmi at a car wash, where they established a relationship.

He said, “Bunmi helped me to unblock my ATM card. I did not know that he worked in a bank until then. He later said I should get some account numbers for him and I called my friend, Adenekan, to assist me, which he did. Bunmi simply said he wanted to transfer money into the accounts.

“I don’t know how the man used to do it, but whenever he transferred money into the accounts, he would call us and we would use ATM cards to withdraw the money. He took 70 per cent, while we shared 30 per cent.

“Bunmi later called me and said he had left the bank and I should throw away the SIM card we had been using to communicate”, he narrated.

The second suspect, Adenekan, who claimed to be a land agent, said he tricked a woman into providing the account numbers used for the fraud.

“I met Akinyele in Lagos in November 2017. He called me in December and said he needed some account numbers. I then approached a female customer of mine, telling her I needed three account numbers for my land business. I told her someone wanted to pay me and the money could not be paid into a single account. After she was arrested, she brought the police to me. I then led the cops to Adenekan”, he stated.

According to CSP Badmos, the suspects would be arraigned in court at the end of investigations.

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