29 May 2025 | 15:24
The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) has rubbished reports that over 7 billion birr ($56million) has been looted and transferred to the accounts of businesses and individuals.
In a brief statement released on Wednesday night, CBE admitted that there were suspicious activities to illegally transfer money from the bank but foiled and a penny was not transferred. The bank described the reports by different media outlets on the disappearance of over 7 billion birr from the bank’s account as “false news”
“On the contrary to what was reported in the media, no money whatsoever was looted from our bank. Rather it was an attempt to look for a large amount of money,” The bank said in an explanation,” it said.
The narrative the bank projected is that the bank’s internal control system “detected a suspicious activity within minutes after the attempt was made.” It was stopped immediately and no money was transferred, according to the bank.
CBE also made claims that the foiled attempt was made by “some individual suspects who were trying to get inappropriate benefit, and was not an intrusion on the banking system.”
Many of the reports said businesses and government officials were allegedly involved in transferring the stated money to individual and businesses accounts.
Furthermore, the bank reported that the incident was reported to relevant law enforcement authorities. Suspects are arrested and police are undertaking an investigation into it. It pledged to make the outcome of the investigation public when it is completed.
MG/abj/APA