{"id":20572,"date":"2024-11-05T15:05:39","date_gmt":"2024-11-05T15:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/?p=20572"},"modified":"2024-11-05T15:15:17","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T15:15:17","slug":"n622m-fraud-court-remands-two-for-hacking-interswitch-server","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/?p=20572","title":{"rendered":"N622m Fraud: Court Remands Two for Hacking Interswitch Server"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><b>\u2026Funds Transferred to UBA, Zenith Bank, Eco Bank, GTBank, FCMB, Others<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">Two men, Daniel Kelechi Ikeoha and Sylvester Ebeta, have been ordered to remain in custody at the <a href=\"https:\/\/lagosstatemoj.org\/2024\/06\/18\/lagos-dcr-visits-ikoyi-correctional-centre\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ikoyi Correctional Facility<\/a> in Lagos by a Federal High Court for allegedly defrauding <a href=\"https:\/\/interswitchgroup.com\/home\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Interswitch Nigeria Limited<\/a> of N622 million.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">The ruling, delivered by Justice Yellim Bogoro, followed the defendants\u2019 plea of not guilty to charges of conspiracy, hacking into Interswitch\u2019s server, and unlawfully taking possession of funds.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">The charges against them violate provisions of the Cyber Crimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc.) Act, 2015, and the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">According to Prosecutor Justine Enang, a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) with the Legal Department of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.specialfraudunit.org.ng\/en\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Police Special Fraud Unit<\/a> (PSFU) in Ikoyi, the defendants conspired with others still at large between January 2022 and October 2023 to fraudulently manipulate the Interswitch Payment Gateway.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">This manipulation enabled unauthorized transfers totaling N622 million from various customer accounts to accounts owned by the defendants.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">The funds were reportedly transferred into several bank accounts associated with the defendants across different banks, including <a href=\"https:\/\/kuda.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kuda Microfinance Bank<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ubagroup.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UBA<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zenithbank.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zenith Bank<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/ecobank.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Eco Bank<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gtbank.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">GTBank<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fcmb.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FCMB<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/moniepoint.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Moniepoint Microfinance Bank<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">During the arraignment, the defendants\u2019 attorney, N.S. Hart, submitted two applications.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">The first challenged the court\u2019s jurisdiction, arguing that her clients were previously charged before a magistrate court, making the current charges an abuse of judicial process. The second application sought bail for the defendants.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">In response, the prosecutor confirmed that charges in the magistrate court had been withdrawn and presented a counter-affidavit opposing the bail request.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">Justice Bogoro ordered arguments on the bail application and scheduled a ruling for November 14, remanding the defendants in custody until then.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">The formal charges against the defendants allege that they, along with unidentified accomplices, conspired to commit fraud, hacked the Interswitch system, and converted the stolen funds for personal use.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s2\">If convicted, they face penalties under both the Cyber Crimes Act and the Money Laundering Act.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two men, Daniel Kelechi Ikeoha and Sylvester Ebeta, have been ordered to remain in custody at the Ikoyi Correctional Facility in Lagos by a Federal High Court for allegedly defrauding Interswitch Nigeria Limited of N622 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20573,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[173,9369,9370,9367,9368],"class_list":["post-20572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-court","tag-hacking","tag-interswitch-server","tag-n622m-fraud","tag-remands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20572"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20572"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20580,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20572\/revisions\/20580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}