TWO staff members of Keystone Bank Limited, Ebele Bernardine Okpala and Perpetua Onyeto, have been arraigned before a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos on charges bordering on alleged conspiracy, theft, money laundering and obtaining the sum of Thirty-Five Million Naira (N35,000,000.00) by false presence.
The two bankers were arraigned last Friday, by the Special Fraud Unit (PSFU) of the Nigeria Police, Ikoyi, Lagos.
The prosecutor, Barrister Eliot Ijie, a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP), told the court that the two bankers committed the offence sometime in July 2023.
Particularly, CSP Ijie told the court that the first defendant, Ebele Bernardine Okpala, who worked in one of the bank’s branches in Anambra State connived with the second defendant, Perpetua Onyeto, who worked at a branch of the bank in Nsukka, Enugu State, to commit the alleged fraud.
Specifically, the prosecutor told the court that the first defendant, Mrs Okpala, fraudulently obtained the sum of N35 million from a finance company into her Keystone Bank account, as a loan and placed a lien on the account to enable her secure international travelling documents for her daughter, but later connived with the second defendant, Perpetual Onyeto to lift the lien without authorization from the bank and made away with the money in the account.
The prosecuting counsel also told the court that the offence allegedly committed by the two defendants contravened Section 1(1)(c), Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 1(3) of the same Act.
He also told the court that the two bankers’ acts contravened sections 516 and 383 (1) Criminal Code Act LFN 2004, and sections 21(a) and 18 (2)(d) of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022 and punishable under Section 18(3) of the same Act.
The two bankers denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty to the five counts charge.
However, at the resumed hearing of the suit, Justice Deinde I. Dipeolu, after taking arguments on their bail applications, which were not opposed by the prosecutor, admitted the two bankers to bail in the sum of N10 million each with two sureties in like sum.
Justice Dipeolu also ordered that one of the sureties must be a landed property owner within the court’s jurisdiction, while the second surety, must be a Grade Level 16 officer in either Lagos or federal government establishment.
The matter has been adjourned to 6 November for the commencement of trial.
Source: societyherald.com
Eighteen-Eleven Media