Shocking revelations have emerged regarding the indictment of top officials of Nigerian Bank, Sterling Bank PLC, for alleged Money laundering, illegal deductions, forgery and fraudulent mismanagement of over $122 Million dollars belonging to a customer, MIDEN Systems Ltd following Police investigations.
Documents exclusively obtained from official sources reveal that the bank has been involved in fraudulent accounting, mismanagement of contract proceeds, money laundering, unauthorized fund transfers, opening of fake bank accounts in the name of MIDEN Systems without authorization, and forgery of bank documents in clear violation of banking regulations.
It may be recalled that in June 2012, MIDEN Systems Ltd, an indigenous oil service firm, entered into a Term Loan/Vessel Finance Facility Agreement with Sterling Bank to enable Miden finance the acquisition of six Light Marine Vessels to be used in operation of the firm’s contract with SPDC.
Under the agreement, the Company contributed $7.3 million (30%) of vessel cost, while the Bank provided the sum of $17 Million dollars ($17,079,000.00) amounting to 70% as loan (via Letters of Credit) for the purchase of the vessels in Malaysia and Singapore. The Repayment plan was structured such that 70% of all contract proceeds from Shell Petroleum Development Company would be transferred, as Loan Repayment, to a Debt Servicing Repayment Accounts (“DSRA”) domiciled with Sterling Bank, while 30% would be reserved for the Company’s operational needs. The tenor of the loan was a 60 months duration (with 6 months moratorium) and billed to terminate by September 2017.
A Police Investigative Report of the activities of Sterling Bank dated 14 January 2025, and which is now pending before a Joint committee of the National Assembly, uncovered a series of grave banking malpractices committed by Sterling Bank between 2016 and 2024 regarding this loan transaction.
According to the report, the bank has been misappropriating contract proceeds without rendering proper account statements to the customer. Several Unauthorized Payments have been made from customer account to unknown persons, including disclosed and undisclosed Sterling Bank solicitors.
Despite multiple formal requests by the customer, Sterling bank refused to provide account statements thereby concealing transaction records (credit and debit notifications) and falsifying book entries.
In addition, the bank failed to disclose the status of the loan liquidation process thereby creating financial opacity.
The police also discovered the Creation of multiple fake accounts by the bank, including an unusual 20-digit account in the name of the Company without authorization.
The Bank unlawfully consolidated the Customer Company’s account with the account of a different and distinct company, Chasewood Nigeria Limited, in order to fraudulently impose dubious and illegal debt obligations on the Company.
It was found that Sterling Bank deliberately denied the Customer access to its 30% share of proceeds, thereby crippling the Company’s operations.
Between 2016 and 2024, Sterling Bank received more than $57 million in contract payments from SPDC and yet falsely claims the Company owes an additional $30 million Dollars to the Bank
Further findings show that Sterling Bank has received a total credit of One Hundred Million and Twenty Two Thousand US dollars (USD122,768,041.69) in the domiciled account without rendering a proper account of the application and sources of funds to the customer contrary to CBN Rules & Regulations.
