How Ex-bankers Engaged Hackers To Steal N20bn – Witness Tells Court

A Lagos State Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja, on Wednesday, resumed hearing in an attempted fraud case involving three former bankers attached with the First Bank of Nigeria Plc.

The trio; Ozioma Ugorji, 35; Ugwu Emeka, 32; and Obike Chukwuka, 38, were on March 6, 2022, arrested by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) for allegedly attempting to steal N20bn from the bank.

At the resumed hearing, a prosecution witness, Adamu Dahiru, told the court that the defendants were arrested after one of them connected a laptop he collected from a hacking syndicate to the bank’s server.

“They conspired to give access to a fraudster to defraud the bank of over N20bn. The report we gathered was that the money was in the cloud and they needed to bring it out.

“The second defendant (Emeka) had a meeting with the syndicate at a hotel.

“When the first defendant (Ugorji) was arrested, he made a statement that he was introduced to the syndicate by the third defendant (Chukwuka) and that they had communicated with someone from the headquarters.

“The second defendant made a statement that a laptop was given after several promises that he should connect the laptop to the bank’s system.

“When he was on duty, he connected the laptop to the banking system, but during the connection, the I.P. of the laptop was picked up and the system was destroyed” Dahiru said during cross examination.

The judge, S.O. Solebo, adjourned the case till October 5, 2022, for continuation of trial.