A cash officer with First City Monument Bank Plc, Olajide Ogundipe, has been sentenced to six months imprisonment by Justice Alaba Ajileye of a Federal High Court in Lokoja over a N12.3m Automated Teller Machine fraud.  

The Osun State-born banker was arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on March 2 on eight counts bordering on criminal conspiracy and theft to which he initially pleaded not guilty. 

Ogundipe joined FCMB in September 2008 after three years with a new generation bank in Abuja.

After the confessional statement, Ogundipe was said to have promised to refund the stolen money and made good his promise when his lawyer, Mr. Ibrahim Muktari, brought to the EFCC an FCMB draft of N9m dated Oct 22, 2009.

 

He had earlier paid N3.5m of the stolen money.

A statement issued on Friday by the spokesperson of the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, in Abuja said the accused changed his plea and pleaded guilty to all eight counts following the weight of evidence against him.

Uwujaren said, “He was subsequently sentenced to six months imprisonment with N10,000 option of fine on each of the counts.

“In sentencing the accused, the judge took consideration of Ogundipe’s ill health and the fact that he refunded the entire sum to the bank through the EFCC even before he was charged to court.”

Trouble started for Ogundipe in September 2009 following a petition by FCMB to EFCC, alleging fraudulent withdrawal of money from the bank’s ATM in excess of N12m by an employee at the Lokoja branch of the bank.

 The accused person, who confessed to the crime after his arrest, was said to have claimed that he spent the money on his wedding in 2008. 

Ogundipe explained that he made the withdrawals, usually a minimum of N500,000, each time he loaded the three ATMs in Lokoja, adding, “Thereafter, I would manipulate the posting to balance the account.”

According to him, he never kept the stolen money in any bank but in his briefcase at his Lokoja home, unknown to his wife, who was residing in Karu, Abuja.