An Abuja based Company, Miden Systems Limited, has 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 account 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 Plc and four other defendants, committed the alleged offences.
However, the trial, slated for Monday, could not hold due to the on going Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, Conference in Enugu.
The matter was adjourned to September 10 for mention.
The complainant 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 $200,000,000 (two hundred million United States dollars).
The company through it’s counsel, Louis Alozie, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, contested that the “Funds were moved and misappropriated by the defendants at reckless abandon with huge and massive spurious debits to the its account”.
The company 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.
“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 hard-earned funds.”
The complainant further contends that it is the duty of the bank to communicate to it any transactions or decisions to be carried out in its name before doing so.
It maintained that dollar components paid to it are held on to and traded with by the defendants 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 N2 billion 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 N2 billion 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, the 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 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, bank disbursed the sum of over USD 1m to one “AA”; then two days later, the bank disbursed over USD 29m to the same “AA”. This scheme continued unabated.
“Miden contends 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 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 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 Defendants, 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 Defendants to give it access to its accounts and to resolve all controversial issues between it and the Defendants, it petitioned the Defendants before the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions,” the complainant stated.
It would be recalled that the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions, after observing that the petition had merit, referred it to the Inspector General of Police, who after carrying out investigations on the criminal allegations, came up with an Investigation Report whereby the defendants were allegedly indicted in February 2025.
Customer files criminal charges against bank over alleged forgery, fraudulent deduction
