A Limited liability company PRO INTERNATIONAL CONCEPT,has filed an application before a Federal high court in Lagos seeking the following order of the court:
An order committing MR MORUF ABIOLA OSENI,Managing Director, Wema Bank Plc ( 2nd Respondent); MR BABATUNDE OLOFIN Managing Director, Moniepoint Microfinance Bank (3rd Respondent), MR MUSTY MUSTAPHA, Managing Director Kuda Microfinance Bank (21st Respondent), MR HENRY OBIEKEA, Managing Director Fairmoney Microfinance Bank (22nd Respondent) ,MR CHIKA NWOSU Managing Director Palmpay Limited (23rd Respondent), and MR DAUDU GOTRING WURITKA, Managing Director Opay Digital Service Limited (24th Respondent) for contempt of Court for their wilful disobedience to the Ex-Orders of the Honourable Court made on the 21st November, 2024.
An order directing the aforesaid persons to appear before this Honourable court to show cause why they should not be committed to prison instanter for their wilful acts of disobedience to the aforesaid Orders of the court An order Committing the aforesaid Persons to prison instanter for wilful disobedience of the aforesaid Orders of this Honourable Court And such further or other orders as the Honourable Court may deem fit, to make in the circumstance.
According to affidavit in support of committal sworn to by a litigation manager Omotayo Adebayo, in the Law frm of Bayo Omotubora and filed before the court on behalf of the company by a Lagos lawyer Prince Bayo Omotubora,the deponent avers that,the company kept a current operational account with a commercial bank.
As part of opening of the account, the email address submitted with other requirements was: Charlie.falahah@gmail.com, but upon completion of the account opening procedure the email address was wrongly documented by the bank as; Charlie.falahan@gmail.com. The last letter “h” was wrongly written as letter “n”.
The company requested repeatedly that the e-mail address should be corrected but the bank did not obliged and as a result of this the company decided to leave the e – mail address and it used it to receive messages.
The e-mail address was used to hack the company account
‘The Appitcant’s aforesaid account was hacked on the 5th of September, 2024 and a whooping sum of N95,000 O00 (Ninety-five Million Naira) was fraudulently taken out of the account and the said sum were broken into four and transferred into four accounts domicile in WEMA bank
The money was In turn transferred in various sums in tranches Into the accounts domicile in nine other banks.
Immediately the account of the company was hacked on the said 5th day of September, 2024, and the said sum of N95 Million was moved out of the account, the Applicant quickly alerted the account officer who immediately sent out “Block and Recall of Fraudulent Transactions IFO PRO International concept messages to the Various fraud desk of the 28 financial institutions listed before the court as respondents.
The fraud desks of the respondents promised to freeze the suspected accounts of the Respondents for 72 hours and required a court’s order to sustain the freeze beyond 72 hours.
The company sought and obtained a Court Order from a District Court sitting at Ngararaba Gurku, Nasarawa State on the 9th September, 2024 to enable the Respondents to hold on to the frozen funds beyond the 72 hours administratively as promised and the Order was served on the Respondents.
The company later instituted this suit In the Court and on the 21st November, 2024 the Court graciously granted Orders directing that the salvaged sums In the various accounts of the Respondents with be reversed to the company’s account and the multiple accounts of the respondents liened for further investigations, and the Court’s Orders and all the originating processes and Motion on Notice were duly served on the Respondents by the balliff of the Court.
However,the alleged contempnor as the Directing Minds of thier organisations refused to reverse the company’s money frozen in their banks.
The company no longer has other option than to seek compliance with Committed proceedings herein initiated.The company file FORM 48 and caused same to be served on the Respondents and notwithstanding the service the said Respondents did not bulge.
It is interest of Justice to accede to this application.
