EFCC Arrests Bank MD Over N4Bn Fraud

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commis­sion, EFCC, in Enugu, yesterday arrested the Managing Director of an Enugu-based ‘won­der bank’ named ‘Lets Partner With You Ltd’, Chief Patrick Shanchi Nwokike, at his resi­dence in Enugu State.

A press statement from the office of EFCC in Enugu said his ar­rest was necessitated by petitions from many Nigerians cutting across religious, gender, ethnic, economic and social sta­tus.

EFCC said reports gathered indicated that his company, since the past five years obtained over N4 billion deposits from members of the public with promise of paying huge interest in return.

EFCC said their in­vestigations so far re­vealed that the company has no license to solicit and manage funds for the public and was not registered with Securi­ties and Exchange Com­mission, (SEC) or the Nigeria Deposit Insur­ance Company (NDIC).

According to EFCC, further investigations revealed that the 10 per cent interest the com­pany reached in agree­ment with its depositors was only paid for a while before further payment of in-terest stopped au­tomatically. With the development, all efforts by depositors to with­draw their original de­posit and have the con­tract terminated proved abortive.

The commission said that many of the com­plainants alleged that the operators of the scheme es-pecially, the Managing Director, Chief Nwokike, lives a flamboyant lifestyle and acquired several per­sonal assets and uses their deposits for phi­lanthropy.