The attempted robbery at the Gbagada, Lagos State branch of the Guarantee Trust Bank on May 10, 2012 was a set up by the bank to uncover the massive fraud at the branch, which was causing the bank to lose more than N5 million of depositors’ fund yearly.
The Eagle Online can authoritatively report that bank staff connived with customers to defraud unsuspecting customers of huge sums as a source in the bank, who requested anonymity, said the Gbagada branch of the GTBank is notorious for fraudulent banking transaction.
The source said: “They thought they can steal money and since the manager of the bank is supposed to be involved and top security officers were holding secret meeting with them, then they can go scot free after stealing the money.
“But unknown to them, it was a set up to sanitise the branch from reported cases of fraud and to find out the staff committing the fraud.”
The Eagle Online also gathered exclusively that Davision Eboihage, George Alabi and Akintoye Oke, all tellers at the bank, were among the armed robbery suspects arrested by operatives of the State Anti-Robbery Squad.
The three were also said to have been involved in different fraud in the bank.
The source added that Eboihage was the leader of the fraudulent gang in the Gbagada branch and his confession to the police stated that he had worked with one Timi Bozimo and one Macaulay Odigbo, who are non staff of the bank, to withdraw more than N5 million from customers’ accounts on different occasions, using forged signatures obtained from Eboihage.
The gang would have succeeded in their attempt to rob the bank that fateful day as one Sodiq Yunisa, who was recruited by Eboihage, had, in turn, recruited more than six suspected armed robbers to strike the bank.
But plain cloth detectives, who had gotten wind of the robbery attempt, swooped on Yunisa.
Following the confession of Yunisa, the other bank staff and the outsiders were also arrested.
Reacting to the fraud in the bank, spokesperson of the Lagos State Police Command, Jaiyeoba Joseph, stated that seven other non staff of the bank were arrested.
Joseph, however, denied that the police shot dead two of the suspects, simply identified as Arnold and Sunny.
Both are suspected to be members of Yunisa’s gang.
Joseph added that two locally made pistols were recovered from the gang while the case has been transferred to the State criminal Investigation Department at Panti, Yaba, Lagos for thorough investigation.