By Evelyn Usman

Commissioner of Police in-charge of Special Fraud Unit, SFU, Mr. Tunde Ogunsakin, has attributed lack of well equipped forensic laboratories, data base of criminals, inadequate legislation and collaboration with private sector, as well as international collaborative framework as factors militating against the handling of bank frauds.

He also blamed most banks executives for hampering the detection of bank frauds by withholding necessary information on the grounds that they do not want negative publicity for their banks.

Briefing newsmen on the current trend in banks fraud, Ogunsakin expressed shock that inspite of what he described as ambivalence measures put in place by government regulators for the commercial banks/players to guarantee security of access and terminals, which provide tools for e-products delivery, fraudsters were still unrelenting to thwart these efforts.

Most common among electronic banking Fraud according to him, was the Money Transfer (Wire) Instruction Schemes “where either the bank customers account passwords are either stolen, hacked into, or where the security pass codes of bank officials are compromised through the bank’s electronic platform by fraudsters.

“In the first scenario, fraudulent wire transfer instructions are scanned supposedly from the customers account profile to the bank relationship managers and either through active connivance or sheer negligence on the part of the bank, such platform instructions are honoured by the bank as money running into Hundreds of Millions of Naira are paid into fraudsters nominated bank accounts.

In a world where Information Technology has become the veritable foundation of modern day banking in a cashless environment, it is quite natural for fraudsters to devise their own criminal means and motive to circumvent the system.