A NIGERIAN lady in France, Elizabeth Henry, has said that she is being investigated and risks jail term over fake euro notes paid into her account by her sister.
The euro notes, according to her, were issued to her sister by the Maitama branch of Standard Chartered Bank on August 17, 2021.
Elizabeth’s sister, Mary, had taken to social media on September 18 to explain how she applied for a €3,000 Personal Travel Allowances (PTA) at the Standard Chartered Bank, Maitama, Abuja, on August 17, 2021, to finance her studies at the University of Burgundy, France.
I applied for PTA for my travel 3000 euros 💶 was given to me from @StanChartNG @GazetteNGR @StanChartIN @StanChartHelpIN branch Maitama, i was then contacted from the bank of France to proof where I got money from @cenbank is shame that such reputable bank will engage in fraud!
— Bêla (@belly112) September 17, 2021
Mary, who only gave her middle name, was admitted into the school in April 2021 to study International Management and Business Studies.
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But she learnt, after depositing the money into Elizabeth’s account, that two out of the six notes issued to her by the Maitama Branch of Standard Chartered Bank were fake.
She told The ICIR that the issue was already affecting her studies and causing her documentation to suffer delay.
Elizabeth, who further spoke on behalf of Mary in a WhatsApp interview with The ICIR, said the money was paid into her account as Mary had no bank account in France.
According to Elizabeth, when Mary got into France, she deposited the euro notes into her account.
Elizabeth said she later learnt on September 17 that two €500 bills out of the €3,000 Mary had deposited were fake.
Consequently, the bank had to deduct €1,000 from her account.
“So my sister arrived in France on August 18 for her master’s degree. She came with €3,000 notes (500×6) because she didn’t have a French bank account yet. She asked to pay the money into my account so she could pay for some fees online for school and this was done. However, only €2,000 was credited. So, I was pissed and called my banker to ask why only €2,000 euros was deposited and she said she was going to ask the service in charge of counting money.
“She got back to me a few hours after and told me that they found out that two of the notes were fake and the money was sent immediately to Bank of France (equivalent of CBN in Nigeria). They authenticated the notes and confirmed that they were fake. They documented the notes and sent me two attachments (one for each note) with the serial numbers of the notes. The money was not given back to me because they didn’t want it circulating in France,” Elizabeth said.
Elizabeth told The ICIR that the case had been handed over to the Police for investigation and she risked being blacklisted by the Bank of France and sent to jail.
“They will hand over the case to the police to investigate because I told my banker that the money was bought as PTA from a reputable bank in Nigeria. Because of the case, I risk being blacklisted by the Bank of France, and my account might be closed, not to talk about possible jail term.”
The ICIR called the Manager of Standard Chartered Bank Maitama branch, Jumoke Adewoye, but she did not answer her calls.
She also did not respond to messages sent to her via SMS and Whatsapp. Several calls made to the bank headquarters in Lagos did not go through.
Meanwhile, Standard Chartered Bank, in reaction to Mary’s allegation posted on Facebook, said the bank was investigating Mary’s claim about the alleged fake euro notes issued to her.
Olayinka works with The ICIR as the Social Media Manager, Reporter and Fact-checker. You can shoot him an email via shehuolayinka@gmail.com. You can as well follow him on Twitter via @BelloYinka72