The Week's Newspaper
| Traveller?s cheques cartel hits Standard Bank |
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| Thursday, 12 February 2009 11:19 | |||
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STANDARD BANK Namibia has lost more than N$1.2million in fake traveller’s cheque payouts unwittingly made to a cartel of Nigerian and Namibian fraudsters by the bank’s foreign exchange departments in Windhoek, Informanté has established.
Documents in Informanté’s possession show that between 9 July 2008 and 18 August 2008, Standard Bank Namibia lost N$1,167,115 after the foreign exchange departments at its Ausspanplatz, Gustav Voigts, Walvis Bay and Windhoek branches cashed thousands of counterfeit traveller’s cheques brought in by the fraudsters. The culprits allegedly involved in the traveller’s cheque fraud have so far been identified as Peter Ostermeier, Gideon Shililifa, a Namibian electronic engineer, Tony Anene and Sam Chunz Iilonze, both of whom are Nigerian nationals married to Namibians. Police have only arrested Ostermeier and Shililifa. A police officer attached to Nampol’s Serious Crime Unit, a certain Emily Itolwa who alerted Standard Bank Namibia Managing Director Mpumzi Pupuma to the syndicate’s operations, has also been cited by investigators as allegedly having behaved in a suspicious and unprofessional manner that suggested complicity in the fraud. According to investigations conducted by a private forensic services firm engaged by the bank, fake traveller’s cheques were presented to the bank on six occasions. Pupuma was alerted to the fraud on 25 August 2008, after London-based HSBC bank rejected 110 counterfeit traveller’s cheques worth £11,100 Standard Bank Namibia submitted the cheques to HSBC. Investigators traced the £11,100 fake cheques to Gideon Shililifa, who is said to have negotiated their conversion to N$167,115.00 dollars at Ausspanplatz branch between July 21 and 18 August 2008. Shililifa, who goes by the alias “Jimmy”, deposited the £11,100.00 cheques into his Standard Bank account, number 246071354, with his arrest following on 30 October 2008. “We are not at liberty to discuss the details of individual cases as this detail may compromise any current or future investigations and subsequent legal proceedings that may result. The banking industry is constantly under threat from individuals and syndicates attempting to defraud our institutions and customers. In return we are constantly reviewing our processes and procedures to minimize and hopefully eliminate these threats,” said Pupuma. Director of Bank Supervision at the Bank of Namibia Mike Mukete said the central bank was unaware of the fraud at Standard Bank. Sources at the bank say Shililifa was masquerading as a tour operator whose business was to bring tourists into the country. However, it was later discovered that Shililifa is not registered with the Bank of Namibia to trade in foreign currency as required under the Foreign Exchange Control Act, in which case both the bank and Shililifa fell foul of the law. “It is evident that the bank did not prepare their staff members attached to the respective Forex Department to appropriately handle traveller’s cheque transactions. The investigation also revealed a certain degree of negligence on behalf of the staff members,” reads part of a report presented to Pupuma after the investigation. On 21 August 2008, Tony Anene allegedly submitted fake traveller’s cheques worth £5,900 to Biana van Rooyen, a Team Leader in the Forex Department. Police arrested Anene after van Rooyen alerted police. Van Rooyen is understood to have processed another transaction on 7 August 2008, in which fake cheques worth £4,800 presented to the bank by Anene were transferred into Shililifa’s account and then moved back to Anene’s account in the absence of both parties. On 23 June 2008, Standard Bank received €200 fake traveller’s cheques worth €9,800 (N$120,246) from a certain Sam Chunz Iilonze. At least 41 of these cheques with serial numbers ranging from BM020.401.756 to BM020.401.797 were rejected, and Standard Bank lost at least N$165,000 to the scam. The bank is still waiting for feedback on the remaining €1,400 worth of fake cheques. Chonze brought another 59 fake US$500 traveller’s cheques to the bank on 28 August 2008, but ran out of luck after staff detected that the cheques were counterfeit. Chonze is still at large. Another culprit, Peter Ostermeier, presented £100 fake traveller’s cheques valued at N$1,482.70 to Standard Bank’s Gustav Voigts branch. Ostermeier was arrested after it was detected that the cheques were fake, but the bank had already approved the cheques and paid him. The common denominator of the cheques submitted to Standard Bank include, among other flaws, inferior paper quality, no visible water marks, weak printing and sometimes blurred intaglio printing, inferior holograms and a coat of arms visible to the naked eye. Standard Bank Managing Director Mpumzi Pupuma would not comment on how much the bank had lost and what measures the bank had taken to prevent such losses from recurring. “I work with money, so I lose money, I can’t lose mealie meal. Bankers work with money so what gets lost is money not anything else,” said Pupuma. Director of Bank Supervision at the Bank of Namibia Mike Mukete said the central bank was unaware of the fraud at Standard Bank. Sources at the bank say the financial institution lost much more than N$1.2 million, and feel that investigations into the scam have been concentrated on Shililifa alone while other culprits have been left out. - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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