Confusion in Diamond Bank as Marketer Disappears With Traders' Deposits

Customers of a bank in Nigeria are left shocked after a marketer collected huge sums of money to deposit in the bank but instead disappeared with the money.

 

A marketer with Diamond Bank Plc, Okota branch, Lagos, who fled with a sum of N309,000 collected as deposits from traders is now cooling his head in police custody. 

 

According to reports, the bank had contracted the suspect, Isiaka Abiodun, from Strategic Outsourcing Limited in the Lekki area of the state in 2013. He was asked by the bank to collect money from some traders in Lekki. Abiodun had collected the sum from one Mrs. Nneka Eze, a trader in Lekki, and two others, identified only as Ebulu and Chidera and disappeared with the money.

 

However, the bubble was burst when Eze, whose deposit was N300,000, approached the bank and complained about the alleged fraud.

 

The police went after him and arrested the 28-year-old in his house on March 7, 2016.

 

After he was arrested, Abiodun confessed to taking the money. He revealed that he collected the money in July 2015 and disappeared from the bank in November.

 

In his statement explaining what happened, Abiodun said he used the money to pay the medical bill of his mother who had a stroke. He said he intended to refund the money piecemeal from his salaries, adding that he had repaid N50,000.

 

He said, “I am a contract worker with the bank and I have been working there for three years. It is true that I collected N309,000 from the bank customers. But I used the money to treat my mother who had a stroke. I traveled in November to attend to her. I have paid N50,000 to the bank. I intend to pay the balance in installment from my salary.”

 

He was brought before a Tinubu Magistrate’s Court on Monday on one count of stealing Inspector I. Okeke, the police prosecutor. Okeke told the court that the defendant had confessed to the offence, which is punishable under Section 285 (7) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

 

The charge read,  “That you, Isiaka Abiodun (28), sometime in July, 2015 at Diamond Bank, Okota branch, Okota, in the Lagos Magisterial District, being a marketer attached to the bank from Strategic Outsourcing Limited, Southern View Estate, Lekki, Lagos, did steal a sum of N309,000 given to you for saving, being property of one Mrs. Nneka Eze, thereby committing an offence punishable under Section 285 (7) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, Nigeria, 2011.”

 

The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the count and elected summary trial.

 

He was granted bail by the presiding magistrate, Mr. A. Adefulire, in the sum of N400,000 with two sureties in like sum.

 

The magistrate added that the sureties must tender evidence of tax payments and details of their residential addresses to the court for verification.

 

The case was adjourned till April 20, 2016.