Court arrests three former FIB employees
Criminal Court “C” at the Temple of Justice on Tuesday August 18, arrested three former employees of the First International Bank (FIB) in connection with the disappearance of US$1.2 million, which was allegedly stolen from the bank.
Those employees arrested include: Jermaine Tegli, former head of operations, BeyanDadzi, resident auditor, and Africanus Freeman, cash officer. The individuals arrested were once charged by the Court with the commission of the crimeof money laundering, theft of property, criminal conspiracy, facilitation and forgery.
The three were among former ten employees that were first indicted and charged 2014 on the allegations of money laundering, theft of property criminal conspiracy and facilitation and forgery. Some of them are still at large and the court has declared them wanted.
The first indictment court document stated that “between the periods of January 2012 to February 2013, the defendants allegedly used withdrawal slips, approved, signed and in some instances not signed and without the knowledge and participation of the customers, diverted an amount of US$1,220,028.54 from the bank.”
“Co-defendants Jermaine Tegli and Africanus Freeman, without any authorization, fraudulently used the bank’s manager’s checks account to withdraw the total amount of US$1,102,859.21,” the court document further stated.
The Court document further noted that, “co-defendant Africanus Freeman, who served as cash officer, posted an amount to the system in excess of amounts actually paid to MoneyGram and Western Union’s customers and thereafter converted the amount fraudulently, posted, which caused the bank to lose US$1,269,102.75.”
Co-defendants Tegli, and Freeman converted to their own use and benefit the amount of US$8,924.29 which was in the custody of co-defendant Roberts Cummings as a teller and which was illegally withdrawn and paid out to co-defendant Freeman and Tegli upon their request for an IOU transaction.
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Those arrested are on record dating far back as March 21, 2013, while counting money collected on March 21, 2013 in the vault; the defendants allegedly took US$248,309 and LD$40,349,285 (equivalent to US$576,418.36 at the rate of LD$70), which went missing from the vault of the bank. They are yet to appear before the court.
