Busted hackers explain how they make money disappear in your bank accounts

A staffer of a new generation bank (names withheld) has been declared wanted for defrauding some customers of the bank to the tune N3 million. The banker who is on the run was said to have successfully defrauded the unsuspecting customers by hacking into their accounts and transferring funds into some other accounts of accomplices.

The National Daily gathered that the fraud was uncovered after owners of the accounts complained of funds disappearing, forcing the bank to probe the petition.

Consequent upon the investigations by the bank, the receiving accounts were eventually blocked, leading them to report in their various branches. They were subsequently arrested on the instructions of the bank’s management, and then handed over to the police for further investigation and prosecution.

The Zone 2 police spokesperson, CSP Dolapo Badmos, said in a statement, a copy of which was obtained by The National Daily, that  further investigations led to the arrest of the one of the accomplices of the suspect identified as Bunmi.

“Between November 2017 and January 2018, the Zone 2 Police Command, through its Zonal Intervention Squad, arrested two suspects who were members of a fraud syndicate. They specialised in hacking into bank accounts, ” Badmos.

“One of the suspects, Babalola Akinyele, operated with one Bunmi, a worker at the affected Bank. Bunmi’s role is to hack into customers’ accounts and transfer money into different bank accounts supplied by Adeshina Adenekan, who thereafter withdraws the money with different Automated Teller Machine cards and returns same to the syndicate.

“Akinyele and Adenekan receive 10 per cent each of the proceeds from Bunmi, the arrowhead of the fraud. They withdrew the money with ATM cards because they did not want to enter into banking halls and be caught. So far, N3m has been traced to them.

“We urge members of the public to be careful and not disclose their Bank Verification Numbers and phone numbers to strangers because these are the things they use to access funds. The case is under investigation and effort is on to arrest the bank worker, who is at large.”

Akinyele, 35, an indigene of Ondo State who claimed to be working for a bet company, said he met Bunmi at a car wash.

He said, “Bunmi helped me to unblock my ATM card. I did not know that he worked in a bank until then. He later said I should get some account numbers for him and I called my friend, Adenekan, to assist me, which he did. Bunmi simply said he wanted to transfer money into the accounts.

“I don’t know how the man used to do it, but whenever he transferred money into the accounts, he would call us and we would use ATM cards to withdraw the money. He took 70 per cent, while we shared 30 per cent.

“Bunmi later called me and said he had left the bank and I should throw away the SIM card we had been using to communicate.”

The second suspect, Adenekan, a land agent, said he had tricked a woman into providing the account numbers used for the fraud.

He said, “I met Akinyele in Lagos in November 2017. He called me in December and said he needed some account numbers. I then approached a female customer of mine, telling her I needed three account numbers for my land business. I told her someone wanted to pay me and the money could not be paid into a single account. After she was arrested, she brought the police to me. I then led the cops to Adenekan.”

A police source told The National Daily that when the woman was interrogated, she claimed not to have shared from the proceeds of the crime.

The suspects will be arraigned at the end of investigation.