Cleaner held for N500m fraud attempt after swindling company N2m

Operatives of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS), Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja, have arrested a cleaner for attempting to defraud a company N500million, after allegedly stealing N2million from it.

The suspect, Sylvester Ahuja, was arrested by operatives in 911 Hotel, Warri, Delta State.

According to police, Ahuja, sometime in April, 2017, hacked into the e-mail of a Lagos based company, posing as the Managing Director and instructed the firm's accountant to disburse the sum of N2 million into the Access Bank account of him.

Ahuja, using similar gimmicks in June 2017, requested the payment of N500m into a Zenith Bank account.  The company detected this and quickly alerted the police.

The RRS operatives, in their investigations, discovered that the initial N2m was withdrawn with a debit card belonging to Ahuja.

Ahuja, however, denied hacking into the account of any company, insisting that his friend, Emmanuel carried out the fraud.

The suspect explained he met Emmanuel, a National Youth Service Corp member at his work place in April, 2017.

 Ahuja said: "Emmanuel is serving in Warri. He told me around April, 2017, that he was stranded and that somebody was going to send money to him. He asked me to allow him to use my Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) card because he couldn’t locate his own. I released it to him with my Personal Identity Number (PIN). He told me that I should alert him whenever I received credit alert on my phone and I did.

“I expected these transactions to have been completed after two days. After almost a week, I saw him and I requested for my ATM, he told me he was still using it. After that, I asked him again, and he told me that he had misplaced it. That was how he didn't return the debit card again. My salary came and I approached the bank. I was told my account was having issues. That was the moment I got to know my account was used for fraudulent transactions."

Ahuja further said: "Since the episode, I have not been able to trace Emmanuel. I was informed when I started haunting for him that he was out of Warri.”

The Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Olarinde Famous-Cole, said that investigation was on going and that the suspect had been transferred to the State Criminal Investigations Department (SCID), Panti for further investigations.