By Yohannes Anberbir | Addis Fortune

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – Experts from Citibank, the New York based banking giant that recently was swindled of 27 million dollars from the Ethiopian National Bank’s US account, have scheduled to visit the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) within the next few weeks to verify NBE’s SWIFT security code system through which the two banking entities have been communicating.

NBE had made a claim to Citibank for the amount defrauded.

A source close to the issue at NBE told Fortune that the international banking giant is sending its experts to verify the strength of the security system the national central bank has.

“They have already communicated their intended visit to us, but the schedule is known only by top officials of the two banks,” Bekalu Ayelew, deputy director for Modernization and Foreign Communications Department of NBE told Fortune.

It is the bank’s stance to cooperate with Citibank to probe exactly where the problem occurred. In the event that the outcome of their investigations point to NBE, the bank will, in turn, investigate its employees, Bekalu highlighted.

The Ethiopian central bank has correspondent banking relations with many international banks to facilitate servicing the government’s debts and its international procurements.

NBE receives financial statements from all the banks on a daily basis to check against its balance.

However, a statement it received from Citibank on October 9, 2008, showed a withdrawal of 27 million dollars from its account which it had not endorsed.

After NBE realized the fraudulent transaction on its account, it immediately alerted Citibank that it had not endorsed any payment and brought to the latter’s attention that a larceny had been committed on the account as the withdrawal of the amount was unauthorized.

Accordingly, three Nigerian nationals were detained as they allegedly went to a bank in South Korea to withdraw the said amount.

The fraud was committed with the forgery of the signature of Teklewold Atnafu, governor of NBE. Copies the financial documents with the forged signature were faxed to Citibank, which the bank has never used before, according NBE officials.

Society for Worldwide Inter Bank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is a reliable and secured network that operates financial message between financial institutions. As of December 2007, SWIFT linked 8,332 financial institutions found within 208 countries.

Investigators are currently checking as to whether it was a global financial scam, or a forgery that contains signatures of the governor and board chairman. The details as to what actually transpired are still unclear.