First Bank, a leading Nigerian bank with a market value of ₦829 billion, has launched legal action to recover a large sum of money allegedly stolen by an employee at their Iganmu, Lagos headquarters. The employee, now missing, reportedly funneled the money into 98 bank accounts, including one belonging to his wife.
The bank reported the theft to the Nigerian Police on March 25, 2024, and subsequently secured three court orders between April 4 and 8, 2024, to freeze numerous accounts suspected of receiving the stolen funds.
Sources familiar with the case told ThePaan News that the initial sum identified was ₦12 billion, but it has now risen to approximately ₦40 billion (around $29 million).
The employee, identified in court documents as Tijani Muiz Adeyinka, was a manager on the electronic products team. He was responsible for processing customer refunds, giving him access to an account used for these transactions. Muiz allegedly exploited this position to divert refunds into a merchant account he controlled. As the final authorizer on his team, he could carry out these diversions without needing further approvals, allowing him to continue his scheme for nearly two years undetected.
The fraud came to light when a customer complaint was escalated to the bank’s internal control unit, which uncovered numerous suspicious transactions and alerted the police.
A letter from First Bank to the Lagos State Commissioner of Police dated May 10, 2024, stated, “We hereby bring to your notice the discovery of fraudulent transactions within and outside the bank and request your good offices to set up an investigation to unravel the circumstances surrounding the said fraud and apprehend the culprits.”
First Bank has not responded to calls and emails from ThePaan News seeking comments. The Nigerian Police and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) also did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
An investigating police officer’s statement from March 26, 2024, noted, “I discovered that one Muiz Tijani Adeyinka, a former staff of First Bank, was involved in fraudulent transactions.” The statement added that Muiz made transactions to his wife’s Zenith Bank account, which then transferred funds to other accounts, ultimately involving 1,190 accounts across various banks.
Despite the extensive court documents and complaints, First Bank has not disclosed the total amount stolen or the details of how the money was taken, only asking the police to investigate the fraud.
Fraud continues to be a significant issue in Nigeria’s financial sector, despite a reported decline in cases in the first quarter of 2024. In 2023, Access Bank lost ₦6.15 billion to fraud, and Fidelity Bank lost ₦2.5 billion in three incidents.
First Bank obtained a court order on April 8 to freeze the accounts of the primary and secondary beneficiaries of the stolen funds from a Federal High Court in Lagos. Additional orders were secured on April 8 and May 5 from high courts in Jalingo and Lagos to block further accounts implicated in the fraud.
An anonymous email sent to ThePaan News claimed that one of the primary beneficiary accounts used some of the stolen funds to buy USDT, a stablecoin, from several crypto traders. These traders, who denied knowing the funds were fraudulent, are now entangled in a legal battle with the bank, facing restrictions on their accounts.
