South Korean police said Thursday they had arrested three Nigerians for allegedly obtaining millions of dollars from Citibank with a forged document purportedly from Ethiopia’s central bank.
Police said the suspects were caught Monday in the Yongsan district of Seoul following a tip-off from a local bank employee as they tried to withdraw money from a bank account. It had been frozen at Citibank’s request.
In August the trio allegedly sent a forged payment request from the Ethiopian central bank to Citibank in New York. They asked for more than 30 million dollars to be sent to bank accounts in several countries, including South Korea, China and Tanzania.
“Citibank apparently transferred most of the money, including nine billion won (6.4 million dollars) sent to four local banks in Seoul,” Detective Jung Hyun-Soo at Yongsan police station told AFP.
It was unclear whether money was withdrawn from accounts in other countries, he said.
Of the nine billion won transferred to South Korea, police said the Nigerians had already withdrawn eight billion and were detained while trying to obtain the remaining one billion.
Han Jeong, a senior police officer at Yongsan, told Yonhap news agency the Nigerians had already handed over most of the eight billion won to unspecified Ethiopians.
“After belatedly discovering that the documents had been forged, Citibank notified the Korean banks,” Han said.
Two of the suspects were in South Korea on business visas while a third was an illegal immigrant. Their names were withheld.
“We’re working closely with police in their investigation,” a Citibank Korea spokeswoman said.
Police said Citibank officials told them that the forged document looked authentic and had the signatures of the central bank governor and directors.
10 thoughts on “Nigerians, massive banking scam, with an Ethiopian twist”
Weyane yenorebet yehon?
Interesting.
Hid engdih
It was the inside for from weyane bank system. weyane bank system allow the nigerian forege bank deed. just like the weyane tigrain people scam of the earth fake gold to south africa. They did it again. ethiopia wake up and resuce ethiopian from these tigrain gangesters. The country called ethiopia failed under the leadership of weyane tigray. the tigraian power officails in addis are destroying ethiopian image aroung the world. while eritrea is moving forward as a nation. eritrea is digging gold, eritrea is drilling oil, eritrea is building roads and eritrea media is moving forward 24/7 TV program. eritrea has is own stattlie click http://eastafro.com/ and click Erietinet for amharic arabic program in eritrean TV. ethiopia under the tigrain rule is going down on the tiolt. ethiopia’s you have few years to resue ethiopia from these tigrain gangester
no one should be surprised since the Meles Mafia has been doing this for the last 17 years – it was bound to catch up with them – where was their caretaker Lucifer at this time – the devil’s messenger the patriach of all devils Paulos was not doing his job forgot to call their master lucifer – the bandas and their band of thieves will have their bank account frozen all over – God is intervening !! watch out all tplf bandas – there is no soap that can clean you for the murders you have committed
It is not surprising to me when group of bandit come to power as an institution of a country to loot every thing what the country has. Now when it is hard for them to take it all out, they have to hire foreign gangs like Nigerians Mafia the best gang in the world.
It feel like crying as to how much more can this beautiful country and people be used and abused by Africa’s wors mafiestos- THE WEYANES AND NIGERIAN GANGS. My fellow Ethiopians, yes indeed the weyane media machine makes Ethiopia look as there is no country and people like it but I believe it is to the contrary as what is taken place in present Ethiopia. EthioTv broadcasts as the country is rosey and all Ethiopians should come and join weyanes development but Ethiopia and Ethiopians are being robbed by the same weyanes who is being robbing this beautiful people for the past 17 years; except this time around they are joined by the Nigerians and Eritrean gangs.
hiiiiiii gude alu… menabatu keledeferese ayeteram yemibalehu amarigna, it is true, if our brothers beletehu kehone melekam gen menekakatu teru ayedelem
gud new alu… anebesoche nachew eko, but i feel sorry for my brothers those who did not know what is going on around, if really did not involve into this matter.
What new here is that it is reported by foreign media. Citibank came to our attention for the first time in 1991 when the rumors of the $30 million deposited by American Jews to secure the release of Ethiopian Jews before the fall of Derg and TPLF took power.
TPLF looting on international stage however is not new, following the 1980s famine its spice business got huge capital by selling donated food on markets. The $30 million cash they got from Citibank in New York might be the start of huge business relationship that has been evolved since then.
Citibank and TPLF’s relationship should be scrutinized in detail because of this reported fraud of more than twenty million dollars using a forged document from Ethiopian bank by people of Nigerian origin.
On the recent fraud of fake gold worth millions of dollars from the National bank no higher official was held accountable. This fraud involving foreign bank however should be investigated by foreign experts by going back on all transaction and the result of the investigation should be made public.
One thing is clear, TPLF is a well “respected customer” of Citibank and all the paper work for fraudulent withdrawal of huge money did not even initiate a telephone call to check and that indeed is shame on Citibank. Citibank has to come clean on all business transactions originated in Ethiopia individual and group accounts.
Ethiopians in the Diaspora who are familiar in international banking should also dig in and expose all the crimes the Tigray People Looters Front(TPLF) and its financial empire, EFFORT money laundering, fraud investimet under pseudo names including foreign nationals.
Let us also track down their real state investiment through out North America, Europe, Asia and Middle East before we are surprised by another fraudulent news.
Nothing is impossible for these looters including selling more than 50,000 sqkm of our land to Sudan/North and South and time will only expose the dollar amount of the transaction.
Shame for the looters and their collaborators who make money on poor Ethiopia where more than ten million people are currently starving and young children dying for lack of resources as we speak.