By Vincent Kalu
Chief Humphrey Akachukwu, Managing Director of Cougar Security Services, a major security company in Nigeria, spent over 30 years working in various banks, from the Central Bank of Nigeria to commercial banks, where he helped create and nurture the security units. After retirement, he set up and has been running the Cougar Security Services.
In this interview with Saturday Sun, Chief Akachukwu spoke on the incessant cases of hacking of individual and corporate bank accounts by fraudsters, even as he highlighted how to beat these criminals. He noted that hardly would a successful crime be committed in the bank without a little bit of assistance from inside.
You have a background in finance. One had expected that after retirement, you would go into financial consultancy. What led you into security services?
I moved from Bank Examiner in CBN in 1998 to become Head of Field Inspector in Diamond Bank when it had only 17 branches and the management was only concerned in providing ad hoc arrangement for security services at a time. From those 17 branches, the bank started growing and the need for security unit arose over time. Ordinarily, security is going to fall into inspection or inspectorate division. Security was expected to be born out of that division.
As we were growing, there was the need to have a structured group called security unit. The management then directed that the security unit should be created by my division. So, we started and hired somebody who at that time was working in another bank as an officer in the security unit. He was a police officer and has learned computer science and has served with Nigerian contingents outside the country. I called him and we interviewed him and found him competent. He started working with us as an Inspector of the bank. Mind you, I was coming from the background of a bank examiner. We said there was need for him to be groomed first in what we were doing and gradually set up a full time security and we moved about four people who would attend to police matters when we had issue with police.
As the bank kept getting bigger, we felt the need to hire more people and to begin zonal offices. All this time, the buck of whatever they did stopped on my table because I was overseeing them. I was creating the security services, I was also creating other units that were still under me; one is Compliance, that today you hear of Compliance Institute of Nigeria, of which I’m a director and a trustee. I actually brought a copy of what they were doing in South Africa to Nigeria. As Compliance was happening, Security was happening; Business Process Review was also starting. We ended up having four groups under me – Inspection, Security, Business Process and Compliance. I had line managers and everything they were doing came back to me. Gradually, we started employing more people, some of them might have more experience than me in that area and I was also learning from them even though I was their boss.
So, when I left in 2012, we took about six months to rest and one day, my daughter told me, ‘daddy, you teach in FITC, you teach in CIBN, you teach in Diamond Bank Training School in Apapa, you teach even in CBN Training School, you teach almost everywhere in banking school or industry, so, why don’t you start a training institute for banking etc?’ I looked at where I cannot engage so much in competition because for me to start my own institute, I needed to have a lot of friends in the industry, which I have; I was one of the top people in Compliance, Inspection. Even at that, to get such job, you need to go lobbying people, sitting hours trying to see how you can make them smile in order for them to give you the opportunity to do this or that. And I do not have too much money to start my own bank, and things were getting higher every day in terms of capital.
So, I decided to go into security and believing that having worked in the banks, having supervised security, it is most likely I should be one of their first choice because of the fact that they know what to look for.
By 2013, Cougar Security Services was born. Cougar is the other name for lion especially in North America, where I went to school. So, most of the things I’m doing here were modelled in the USA. If we are doing security, it makes sense that we use something that shows strength. If you open a cage where a lion is, whatever you see you take. We started operation after the registration. Gradually with time, banks and so many corporate organisations started looking towards us.
Why are there rising fraud cases in the banking industry?
It is not that the banks are not doing what they are supposed to do. I’m not defending the banks. Technology has done a lot of good things and it has also done a bit of bad things. I’m a system auditor. Technology is moving at a very high speed. If you compare what is happening in the banking industry in Nigeria and elsewhere, you may find out that Nigeria may be ahead of some developed nations. As it is moving, our boys who may not even have a certificate in computer are also following in one way or the other. If you observe, there is this trending video where one boy who didn’t finish secondary school was saying that he could access any bank account, once he had this and that. There are people who are on daily basis planning on how to hack into a system; there are loopholes. So, technology is aiding and also abetting. It is extremely impossible to say that you are blocking all the loopholes. You can only try your best as much as you could, but chances remain that desperate individuals may keep trying until somehow something clicks. It is for you, the customer and the bank to make sure that every of the information you have or the tools of transaction should be very well be protected. Your personal identification numbers (PINs), your card and the numbers in the card. The last four numbers on the ATM card can make things happen; that number behind the ATM card, usually three digits, which many don’t pay attention to, can also make things happen. The truth remains that some people are very desperate to see how they can hack into systems on one side. There are also some bad people in the system in some of the banks. You may not be foolproof to say that every person working for you is a good man or a trustworthy person. We have had instances of bank workers moving general ledger accounts of people into other accounts. Internal breaches are the worst things you can ever think of. Internal threats are the most difficult for any person to track or to avoid. The best way to stop crime is to create awareness, but there is also hunger in the land. A hungry man is an angry man and he can do anything that is possible for him to get there.
People say for most frauds that take place in the banks, there is always an insider. How true is this?
Yes and no. Example, back in those days, there were instances where some people, especially those who belonged to some groups in the university, some of them were usually intelligent and they came out with good results. Banks were looking for those with good results, especially First Class. When they were employed; we called them executive trainees and trained to an extent – first, how to pay and receive money. There have been instances where one of them came from outside because they had spoken and agreed for him to come and stand and his friend the cashier would give him money. He came and it was assumed as he was standing in front of teller, there was transaction going on. He gave him the money, huge sums and he left. After few minutes the staff disappeared and that was the end. This is an insider, an internal assistance.
There is hardly any successful crime that you would not find a little bit of assistance from inside. If somebody has not played a major role, he might have given information that he didn’t know was sensitive. For these two cases I have mentioned here: One, somebody has played a major role, and the second is that he might have given information that he did not know was sensitive. One, somebody is obviously clearly part of it and the other is that the person may not know that the information he was passing could help crime to be committed. For example, some people come by way of observers to the bank with guns, break into the door and go inside because somebody has told them that about this time we usually bring money out. That is why we warn banks not to float so much money at a time.
How can Nigerians protect their accounts and also what should banks do to protect customers’ accounts?
You should know your association; like the saying, ‘show me your friends, I will tell you who you are.’ Secondly, try as much as possible not to be loudmouthed or boastful. Try as much as possible to keep your secret; confidentiality is key at any point in time. No matter what you think and how much you think that God has blessed you, you still pretend like somebody who is looking for a loaf of bread, not knowing that he has a bakery.
For transaction services tools – ATM, phone, cheques etc, you should be mindful of them because they are instruments of transactions, but if they go into wrong hands, who is knowledgeable (this time around it is not people of 40 years and above, it is people who are perhaps less than 30.), you will be in trouble. You have to be very careful on how you handle these transaction tools; your account information, you need to try as much as possible to hide it. You may not remember the ten digits of your account; if you must store it in your phone make sure the SIM card is locked. Also you have to save it in a way that only you know that it is an account number.
On the part of the banks, they should continuously build firewalls, defence mechanisms that will protect their systems because if anybody is able to hack into their system, it will be a different ball game, as we will be talking about very huge sums of money involved.