The criminal charges against Sterling Bank Limited and its management staff over alleged conspiracy, fraudulent practices, forgery and criminal breach of trust and misappropriation of funds involving $200M dollars has been shifted to October 14 for trial.
Chief Magistrate Njideka Duru in Abuja on Wednesday shifted the trial to the date following the absence of the bank’s top echelons to appear in court to answer the criminal charges against them.
Top rank officers of the bank involved in the alleged multi-million dollars fraud were said to have snubbed the court on the excuse that they have not been properly served with the charges.
Following the complaints that the bank officials are evading service of the criminal charges, Chief Magistrate Njideka Duru ruling in an ex-parte application, ordered that the bank and its officials be served through substituted service.
The service of the ccriminal charges is now to be effected on the bank management by pasting it on the gate of the bank and publishing same in the media for their attention and appearance in court on that day.
An Abuja based Company, Miden Systems Limited, filed criminal charges against Sterling Bank Limited and its management staff over alleged conspiracy, fraudulent practices, forgery and criminal breach of trust and misappropriation of funds.
The company which deals in Engineering, Maritime and Consultancy services, maintains a corporate accounts with the bank.
In the charge filed before Magistrate Njideka Duru of the Chief Magistrate’s Court, sitting in Wuse Zone 2, Abuja, the complainant alleged that the bank, through its Chief Executive Officer together with Sterling Financial Holdings Company Pic and four other defendants committed the alleged offences.
The complaint, had in a 29-page document alleged that the defendants used its name to open various spurious accounts through which it siphoned the company’s funds domiciled with the bank to the tune of over $200M (Two Hundred Million United States Dollars).
The Company through it’s counsel, Louis Alozie, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, contended that the “Funds were moved and misappropriated by the defendants at reckless abandon with huge and massive spurious debits to the its account.
The charge further stated that in line with standard bank practices and extant applicable laws, it continuously and consistently demanded for its statement of account, but they rather denied it access to its funds.
The Complaint further reads as follows: “Without informing the Complainant or making any demands from them, the Defendants proceeded and put all the accounts of the Complainant in lien, thus denying it access to its funds”.
The Complainant further contended that it is the duty of the bank to communicate to it of any transactions or decisions to be carried out in its name before doing so.
It maintained that Dollar components paid to the bank are held on to and traded with by the Sterling bank for months and were not used to settle loan obligations.
“In one instance, the Miden Systems Limited Principal remitted revenues in Dollars to Miden Systems Limited’s account, while the exchange rate was about N150/ $1 (and the market rate was about N198 / $1). The bank stockpiled over N2Billion in Miden’s account after taking its spread.
The company said that unfortunately, within that period, the Naira depreciated to about N500 /$1, and upon pressure from Miden, the bank sold the stockpiled N2Billion at a high Naira exchange rate thereby making the original value of the USD almost worthless
The Complainant further stated that the Defendants refused to issue it with cheque books nor allow it participate on the Internet Banking platform but deliberately perpetrated it, in order to conceal their shady deals on the complainant’s Accounts, thus shutting the Complainant out from knowing its account balance and any outstanding loan obligation till date.
“The company had successfully exited any loan obligations to Sterling Bank in July 2017.
“In about 3 months later, Sterling bank booked an unsolicited loan of about USD 30Million into Miden Systems Limited’s account.
“The most egregious part of this fraud, is that on this certain date of booking the loan, the Sterling bank issued an offer letter of this USD30Million to Miden Systems Limited and “Miden Systems Limited Board of Directors” supposedly authorised the acceptance of the loan on that date, and the bank Board of Directors approved the loan for disbursement on that same date.
“Also, the next day, Sterling bank disbursed the sum of over USD 1m to one “AA”; then two days later, the Sterling bank disbursed over USD 29m to the same “AA”. This scheme continued unabated.
“Miden contended that it never applied for this loan (USD30M), it never accepted this loan, and the signatures to this loan acceptance are alien to Miden Board of Directors.
“Another example of this scheme, was that the Stery bank booked a loan of $3m to another company — Chasewood Limited. Upon discovery, Chasewood Ltd confronted the bank that it never applied for any loan.
“The Sterling bank heinously transferred the loan to Miden Systems Limited’s account claiming that the company (Chasewood Limited) is a sister company to Miden Systems Limited.
“However, Chasewood Limited is a stand-alone company with separate ownership from Miden Systems Limited
“The Complainant also stated that it was a rude shock to it when it received further documentations on a said loan facility granted by Afrexim Bank to the Defendants, in a massive identity theft, including forging the signatures of some persons unknown to Miden Systems Limited. The loan was unauthorized by Miden Systems Limited.
“The Sterling bank without its knowledge and authority, opened accounts in its name with the office address at No. 10 Goba Close, Wuse 2, Abuja within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court.
“The address is not known to the Complainant, and the Complainant does not operate an office in that address.
“The Complainant stated that after all efforts to compel the Sterling bank to give it access to its accounts and to resolve all controversial issues between it and the Sterling bank, it petitioned the bank before the House of Representatives Committee on Public Pettions’ , the lawyers stated.
It will be recalled that the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions, after observing that the petition had merit referred the petition to the Inspector General of Police which after carrying out investigations on the criminal allegations came up with its Investigation Report whereby the Defendants were allegedly indicted in February 2025.”
