Bank loses N28m to 58-year-old fraudster

The police in the Special Fraud Unit has arrested a 58-year-old man for allegedly using clone cheques of the Union Bank Plc to defraud the bank of about N28 million.

Also a man, the police declared as an illegal alien from Niger Republic, Muhammed Nurudeen, was arrested for fraudulently selling a landed property in Lagos and hijacking the phone number of a retired army general.

The Commissioner in-charge of the SFU, Mr, Mike Ehidiamen, who paraded the suspects on Friday, said Taiwo Adeyemo Quadri successfully defrauded the bank, using its different branches across the country.

“For instance last year between 09-04-2008 and 22-04-2008, when it all started, he went to one of their Lagos branches and withdrew N6, 282. 000.00 using six cheques which were later discovered to be cloned,” he said, adding that since then Quadri had moved round the country withdrawing money from the bank, using different names.

It was learnt that he went to such towns as Kebbi, Gusau, Gbagi, Ijebu-Ode, Jos and Funtua. Some of the names he allegedly used were, Segun Bankole, Ajiboye Adeyemi, Charles Obi and Olusegun Badmus.

“He ran out of luck on January 22, 2009, when he went again to their branch at Allen Avenue, Lagos, posing as Yusuf Hassan and presented a cheque of N4 million. Unknown to him his antics had been discovered and he was being monitored. He was promptly arrested and handed over to the unit,” Ehindiamen said.

He said that the illegal alien, Muhammed Nurudeen had been on the wanted list of the unit for a long time. ”The man is not a Nigerian, but he had turned the antics of our land speculators to a science,” he said.

The commissioner said Nurudeen sold a land located at Park View Estate extension for the sum of N80 million.

Both suspects pleaded innocent. Quadri said that a man he named as Akpan Ekpo usually sent him to cash the cheques, while Nurudeen, who insisted that he hails from Sokoto State, said he did not dupe anybody.