Bank MD, others used fake names to acquire N18b shares

A Lagos High Court sitting in Ikeja, presided over by Justice Lateefa Okunnu, was on Tuesday told that a former Managing Director of FinBank Plc (now First City Monument Bank), Okey Nwosu, and three other directors being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, used names of spurious customers of the bank to purchase shares worth N18 billion from Springboard Limited.
The three other directors are: Dayo Famoroti, Danjuma Ocholi and Agnes Ebubedike.
Sabo Yaro, an operative of the EFCC, who is a prosecution witness in the ongoing trial, told the court that the Federal Government in 2009 set up a task force comprising the EFCC, the Central Bank of Nigeria, the State Security Service, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation and the police to look into the management of some banks and discovered that the accused persons used their positions to debit an account of FinBank to the tune of N18 billion and credited same to Springboard Limited to purchase shares for bank customers.
Led in evidence by EFCC counsel, Rotimi Jacobs, Yaro said it was discovered in the course of investigations that the customers for which the shares were purportedly purchased on their behalf were not customers of the bank and that the addresses they gave as offices did not exist.
He said they also got confirmation from the bank through a letter that the companies for which the shares were bought are not real customers of the bank.
Jacobs tendered a 225 page report of the CBN and NDIC to the court, which was the findings of the team that investigated the bank.
The report was admitted as exhibit by the court.
Justice Okunnu adjourned the matter till November 28, 2012 for continuation of hearing.