The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) has issued a final call for individuals who misappropriated funds during a brief system outage on March 16th to return the money by this Saturday's deadline.
A preliminary investigation found that 490,000 transactions were impacted during the 12-hour outage on March 16th, though customer accounts and data remained secure.
Earlier this week, CBE President Abe Sano, in a press briefing held at the bank's headquarters, also stated that the bank was not subjected to a cyber attack.
Now, CBE is urging those who improperly transferred funds during the outage to voluntarily return the amounts to their nearest branch by Saturday. Many individuals have already complied, the bank says.
However, the bank warns that serious legal actions will be taken against those failing to meet the deadline. Names may be published and legal proceedings initiated for non-compliance, the bank said in a statement released today.
Most severely, CBE warns that individuals who do not return the misused funds with the intention of unlawful gain will face appropriate criminal, civil and administrative penalties, it added. This will be pursued in cooperation with judicial bodies and other institutions.
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