The Federal High Court in Abuja has frozen approximately N1.2 billion held in several banks, including Fidelity Bank, GT Bank, Access Bank, and Wema Bank. This action comes after ex-employees of Globus Bank were accused of hacking into customer accounts and stealing N3.5 billion.
The accounts frozen belong to Haril Global Solutions Ltd, Abdullahi Abubakar Sadiq, Onobun Oluwaseun Olumide, and Oluwaseun Adeniyi Afolabi. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) requested the freeze to prevent any further transactions or withdrawals from these accounts.
The incident came to light when Globus Bank raised the alarm in 2023, “suspecting some of their former ICT department staff of hacking into the bank’s systems. The bank approached a court in Lagos for freezing orders on the accounts associated with the suspects and reported the case to the EFCC.”
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The EFCC received an intelligence report detailing how the “ex-staff members, Babatunde Idris Olayiwola, Chinedu Ihuma, and Igwe George Benedict Obinna, allegedly hacked the bank’s systems and transferred over N3.5 billion into various accounts.”
The EFCC’s Litigation Clerk, Samson Oloje, stated in an affidavit that these individuals used their knowledge of the bank’s ICT systems to carry out the fraud.
“One Babatunde Idris Olayiwola, a former staff of Globus who is an ICT expert, created all the software platforms the bank uses. He introduced Chinedu Ihuma to oversee the ICT software operational platforms when he was about to exit the bank,” Oloje said.
He added that Ihuma then introduced Igwe George Benedict Obinna to the bank to continue overseeing the platforms.
Oloje detailed how the fraud was perpetrated using Obinna’s login details, which were shared with Olayiwola and Ihuma. The stolen funds were transferred to accounts linked to Haril Global Solutions Ltd and other affiliated accounts across various banks.
The EFCC’s investigation, led by Deputy Superintendent of Correctional AbdulKareem Awesu, confirmed the fraud and identified the suspects.
The court documents revealed that “the computers and phone of Igwe George Benedict Obinna were sent for forensic analysis to determine the extent of the illegal activities.”
Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, ordered the freeze on January 23, 2024. The EFCC was instructed to report the final outcome of its investigation at a later date.
Meanwhile, Globus Bank had previously obtained a freezing order from the Federal High Court in Lagos on December 21, 2023. The EFCC’s investigation found that the two main suspects, Idris Olayiwola and Chinedu Ihuma, are believed to be in the United Kingdom.
The suspects have filed a case against the EFCC and Globus Bank at the High Court of Justice in Abuja, seeking to overturn the legal actions taken against them.