Kudiwave’s Account Ownership, KYC Gaps Under Scrutiny in ₦750M Recovery Issue Amid Police Fraud Probe

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Kudiwave Technologies Ltd. is facing mounting questions over the ownership, control and beneficial use of a PalmPay account that police investigators allege received ₦750 million traced to a suspected digital-banking fraud.

The dispute, which has prompted protests at PalmPay’s Lagos office and a series of court applications, is increasingly focused on a basic issue: who opened, controlled and was authorized to operate the Kudiwave account into which the disputed funds were transferred?

The company (Kudiwave) has challenged the transfer of about ₦750.37 million from its PalmPay account into a designated Police Special Fraud Unit recovery account.

But police investigators have found that that the funds were laundered through various accounts and banks in a spate of 24 hours, and ultimately ended up in the account of Kudiwave Technologies at PalmPay.

The competing claims have not been finally determined by a court.

The account-owner question

According to sources familiar with the investigation, the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc, (NIBSS) and the Police Special Fraud Unit (SFU) traced the allegedly fraudulent funds through a series of bank accounts before they reached a PalmPay account held in Kudiwave Technologies’ name.

The money reportedly moved into the account in three transfers of approximately ₦250 million each, occurring on the same day and at nearly the same time.

Banking sources say that, the pattern of transfers—large, rapid and closely timed incoming credits—is the kind of transaction sequence that would ordinarily draw scrutiny under anti-money-laundering, fraud-monitoring and suspicious-transaction frameworks.

Police officers also visited the address supplied in the KYC documentation and could not locate the stated premises. Meanwhile people familiar with the…