First Bank, a leading Nigerian bank with a market capitalisation of ₦829 billion, has launched legal proceedings to recover substantial funds allegedly diverted by an employee in the head office team at Iganmu, Lagos.
The employee, identified in court documents as Tijani Muiz Adeyinka, is currently on the run and is accused of siphoning money into 98 bank accounts, including one belonging to his wife.
The bank reported the incident to the Nigerian Police Force on March 25, 2024, and subsequently secured three court orders between April 4 and April 8, 2024, to freeze numerous accounts believed to have received the stolen funds.
Initially, the amount diverted was estimated to be ₦12 billion, but it has now escalated to approximately ₦40 billion ($29 million), according to sources with direct knowledge of the incident.
Muiz, who served as a manager on the electronic products team, was authorised to process reversals for customers.
This role granted him control over an account used for these reversals, allowing him to credit merchant accounts. Allegedly, Muiz exploited this authority to divert reversal funds to a merchant account he controlled.
As the final authoriser in the process, he did not require additional approvals, enabling him to continue the scheme undetected for nearly two years.
The fraudulent activity came to light when a customer’s complaint was escalated to the bank’s internal control unit, which identified several suspicious transactions and reported them to the police.
The bank is now taking legal steps to recover the diverted funds and bring the perpetrator to justice.
Letter to the Lagos State Commissioner of Police reads;
“We hereby bring to your notice the discovery of fraudulent transactions into various transactions within and outside the bank and request your good offices to set up the machinery of investigation in place with a view to unravel the circumstances surrounding the said fraud and get the culprits apprehending to face the wrath of the law,”
