Suspected fraudsters have hacked into an old generation bank (name withheld), stealing N523,337,100 (N523.3 million) from the bank.
SP Eyitayo Johnson, the spokesperson for the Police Special Fraud Unit in Ikoyi, Lagos state, made this known in a statement on Wednesday, September 21.
According to the Police PPRO, the fraudsters hit the bank of N523,337,100.00 using the accounts of 18 different customers’ and dissipated same via Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Cash/ATM/POS/Withdrawals and e-transfers.
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The cyber-attack was carried out on Saturday, April 23, till the early hours of Monday, April 25, 2022, before businesses opened.
SP Johnson said two suspects have been arrested in connection to the crime while efforts are on top gear to arrests others.
“The Legal Section of the Police PSFU, Ikoyi-Lagos; headed by CSP. E.A. Jackson, has successfully obtained an order of the Federal High Court siting in Lagos for the Preservation/Forfeiture/Attachment of a net sum of N523,337,100.00 fraudulently transferred by internet fraudsters who hacked a customer’s account domiciled in one of the Old-Generation banks and posted the funds into 18 different accounts in the same Bank before transmitting same to 225 other accounts in 22 banks/financial institutions.
”The coordinated cyber-attack was carried out during the weekend of Saturday April 23,2022, through Sunday April 24, 2022 to the early hours of Monday April 24, 2022 before business opened.
”In the course of the investigation, the sum of N160,287,071.47 has been recovered from different banks; with two suspects arrested,while operatives are following other leads in order to apprehend the remaining members of the syndicate”.
He said the suspects would be charged to Court as soon as investigations are concluded.
Meanwhile the Commissioner of Police, PSFU, Anyasinti Josephine Nneka, has advised banks and financial institutions on the need to increase their Cyber-Security Surveillance, conduct routine background checks on staff who have login privileges that could be compromised to make banks porous to cyber-attacks. She equally enjoined the public on the need to investigate sources of unexpected inflows into their accounts.
Where such funds are found to have been wrongly credited, the recipient should cooperate with their banks and make conscious efforts to reverse/re-route same, as utilizing such funds is a criminal offence.
