Police indict Sterling Bank over alleged money laundering, fraudulent deductions

By Christiana Ekpa

The Nigeria police on Wednesday indicted Money Deposit Bank, Sterling Bank over alleged money laundering, fraudulent deductions and other financial crimes by its staff members.

This was contained in a report presented to the House of Representative Committee on Public Petition during the hearing of a petition by Maiden Systems Ltd against Sterling Bank, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Shell Petroleum in Abuja.

Maiden System Ltd had petitioned the Committee on alleged mismanagement, fraudulent debit, and misappropriation of funds from its account domiciled with Sterling bank.

Presenting the report before the committee, the representative of the Inspector General of Police, Kabiru Yahaya and Sunny Amison, both Chief Inspectors of Police said after intensive investigation and arrest made on the matter, the bank was found wanting found wanting.

According to him, after arrest was made and an extensive investigation carried out, noting that the bank could not provide evidence to counter the allegations made against it by Maiden System Ltd.

He said “We were saddled with the responsibility to investigate mismanagement, fraudulent debit, and misappropriation of funds from the account of Maiden Systems Limited by Sterling Bank.

“In the course of our investigation, findings emerged about the issue of non-issuance of statement of account, fraudulent debit, and misappropriation of funds. More importantly, Maiden Systems Limited raised the issue of accounts. There are four accounts operated by Sterling Bank Plc for Maiden Systems Limited. Two are U.S. dollar accounts, while two are Nigeria NGN accounts.

“Major remittance is coming to the account of Maiden Systems Limited, to be signed with Sterling Bank, and Shell Petroleum Development Company Limited. Now, we have cutting records from Shell over the period 2017 up to 2020. Shell failed, this is our finding, Shell failed to supply the financial reports for 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

“Now, having regard to the complaint of Maiden Systems that it was denied the statement of account, we interfaced with an account officer, who gave us in writing that the company is being furnished with the statement of account. And I asked how, he said electronically, or by short message service, But there is no proof. There’s no proof to debunk that aspect of the allegation.

“Secondly, we discovered from the statement of account generated by the bank, not provided by the petitioner, or its counsel, or any third party. These are accounts and statements of account generated by the bank. Ordinarily, before an investigator, we did not just call for a statement of account to just look at it and dump it.

“We looked at it holistically and saw the grey areas where there were discrepancies or where there are questions to be raised.”