Bank thief caught after he forged customer's signature and attempted withdrawing N110k

Luck ran out of a man believed to be in his 30s on Monday as he attempted to withdraw N110, 000 (One Hundred and ten thousand naira) from another customer’s account after stealing his transfer slip, then forging the victim’s signature on a bank withdrawals slip right there in the bank before proceeding to carry out the fraud.

However, he was arrested by the Bank’s security personnel who handed him over to the Police when his face could not match that of his victim’s.

The suspect who gave his name as Lukeman Ibrahim said he is from Bauchi state and a graduate of Pure Mathematics from the University of Maiduguri.

The victim, Mr. Theophilus Agada who spoke with Vanguard said he had gone to GT bank, Garki branch, Abuja to transfer some money to another account when the fraud was attempted on his account.

He said, unknown to him, the suspect who was wearing a ring believed to be fetish perhaps trailed 

him to the bank, stole his transfer slip after he had transferred the money and gone and then attempted to withdraw the said sum before he was caught.

He said it was the bank who called his attention to the attempted fraud. According to him:

 I was already out of the bank premises when they called me and said someone wanted to make a withdrawal of N110, 000 from my account. They said they had to call me because the suspect’s face did not match mine.”

Continuing, Mr. Agada said,

 “on getting to my bank, I saw that the suspect forged exactly my signature and my full name. Everything was perfect except his face which gave him away.”

Mr. Agada said he wants everybody going to transact in the banks to always be wary of the person next to them as such a person could be a fraudster.

“This is the second time the suspect is trying to defraud people at the bank. Last week, he attempted defrauding another person at the Area 3 branch of GT Bank but was arrested and later bailed only for him to repeat the same crime at Area 11 today. 

I want everybody to learn from this and know that while at the bank, they should be very alert as someone standing next could be a thief claiming to equally be a bank customer.”

The suspect was taken to Garki police station where he was remanded. He said at the police station that the suspect who is visibly under the influence of some drugs pleaded that he went into the fraud business because he was hungry.

The ring believed to be fetish was however taken from him by the police personnel. Mr. Agada also revealed that both the state and the bank are pressing charges on the suspect as he would be charged to court