Bank Staff Arraigned for N100m Forex Scam

Paul Obi in Abuja

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) thursday arraigned one Ibrahim Bashir before Justice R.D Aisha of the Kano State High Court on one count charge of obtaining money by false pretence to the tune of N40,000,000.

The accused person allegedly induced the complainant to part with the sum of N100,000,000 under the pretext that the money would be invested in forex business which will earn a profit of N7,000,000 weekly.

Contrary to the claim of the accused person that he was the bank manager in charge of forex,  investigation however revealed through the voluntary statements of the bank officials that the accused person was only an office assistant in the marketing department.

The charge read: “You Ibrahim Bashir sometimes in 2015 at Kano, within the judicial division of the High Court of Kano State, while working with the United Bank for Africa Post Office Branch, Kano, as office assistant in the marketing department, with intent to defraud obtained from one Mohammed Ibrahim Ma’aji of Platinum Synergy Limited the sum of N100,000,000 via your company account called Rabnas Global Concept by falsely representing to him that you are head of forex with United Bank for Africa and a registered Bureau de Change operator and that the money will be invested in forex business by given him monthly profit of N7,000,000 and will also refund his entire capital of N100,000,000 at the end of December 2015 which you did not and you thereby committed an offense contrary to section 1 (1)(a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act,  2006 and punishable under section 1 (3) of the same Act”.

The accused person pleaded not guilty when the charge was read to him.

Counsel for the prosecution, Idris I. Haruna, requested a date for trial in view of the plea of the accused person.

However,  the defence counsel moved a motion for bail praying the court to admit his client to bail.

Justice Aisha adjourned the matter to June 1, 2017 for ruling on bail application and commencement of trial.

The accused person was ordered to be remanded in prison custody pending ruling on bail application.