Twenty-five months after he was sacked by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over allegation of mis-management and fraud, trial commenced in the case brought against the former Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Intercontinental Bank Plc, Erastus Akingbola, and an aide, Bayo Dada by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) on Wednesday.The EFCC had dragged Akingbola and his aide, Dada, before Justice Hbeeb Abiru of the Lagos High Court in Ikeja over a fresh 29-count charge bothering on theft of sum running into about N47.5 billion.
In his Testimony before the court on Wednesday, the first EFCC prosecution witness, Abdulraheem Jimoh, told the court how Akingbola fraudulently transferred about N2 billion (8.5m pounds) from the coffers of the bank to his domiciliary account outside the country.
Jimoh, who is a Chief Inspector with Intercontinental Bank said this while been led in evidence by the EFCC’s lead counsel, Mr. Emmanuel Ukala (SAN), the Witness also informed the judge that as at the time the first defendant transferred the money in March 2009, he was the bank's CEO.
According to the witness, "in the course of my work I conducted investigation on five transactions linked to the first defendant. The first transaction involved the transfer of £ 8m pounds, that is (£8, 540,134.58) outside Nigeria shortly after the intervention of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) into the bank's operations."
The witness also testified that one of the Intercontinental Bank's correspondent's banks, Dutsche sent a letter to the bank in Nigeria on September 3, 2009 on money laundering and asked the latter to confirm if the transaction met the requirements.
Jimoh said the summary of the outcome of the bank's investigation showed that the transaction failed to meet the required procedure adding that as at the time Akingbola transferred the money to his domiciliary account abroad on March 13, 2009, he did not have any credit facilities for such transactions.
Although the testimony was intermittently punctuated by a series of objection from the defendants’ lead counsel, Mr. Ayodeji Sasegbon (SAN), the witness who has about 22 years’ experience in the banking industry said Akingbola perpetrated the act by moving various sums of money amounting to N2bn from the bank to the account of one of the bank’s subsidiaries, Intercontinental Capital Market Limited.
He said "from this account, the money was moved to a customer's account, Megal Investment Limited belonging to the Chairman of intercontinental Bank Plc, Dr. Raymond Obieri. From the account of Megal Investment, the money was moved to the accounts of seven operators of Bureau de Change (BDCs) in the state."
Sasegbon intervened again that the defence was being taken by surprise since they did not have all the records referred to by the witness but he was overruled by the court.
In his further testimony, the witness said the funds were exchanged in dollars to the tune of $11.840.427.00m that is about £8.5m pound sterling.
Jimoh said the money was subsequently credited into Akingbola's domiciliary account abroad.
Justice Abiru adjourned the matter to July 26, for further hearing.
No comments:
Post a Comment