Man behind fraudulent bank alerts arrested after stealing N3m

isaac

January 22, 2015 3:34 PM

A fraudster who duped banks and companies by sending false alerts and issuing dud cheques has been arrested.

A man who is a member of a syndicate that has been duping banks of millions of naira through the use of fraudulent bank alerts, Abdullahi Rauf, has been arrested by the Ogun State Police Command for allegedly defrauding an electronic company and stealing money and items worth N3 million through the alerts.

The 42-year-old Rauf is currently in police custody.

Rauf's mode of operation, according to the affected company, is by buying the items with the promise to pay through a bank transfer; true to his words, the firm would receive bank alerts, signifying he had credited its account.

What the company did not know was that the bank alerts were fake. But on close scrutiny of its accounts, it discovered that they had been duped as no money was remitted into their coffers.

The company then invited the police who picked up Rauf on January 19. The suspect confessed that he used to sign cheques and pay them in on Fridays, knowing that the bank would alert the account owner of the payment even when the cheques had not been cleared.

The Ogun State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Ademuyiwa Adejobi, disclosed that by the time such cheques get to the clearing house, it will be discovered that they are bounced.

"The company (or other affected individuals) would not be able to get the expected money.

In other words, the bank alerts would deceive the company to release goods to the suspect with the hope that the suspect has paid into the company’s account."

isaac