by Alan Cordova

On Friday, the Department of Justice announced the arrest of Paul Gabriel Amos on charges that he masterminded the theft of $27,167,078 from the Citibank account of the Ethiopian central bank. Officials accuse Amos and his alleged co-conspirators of posing as senior officials from the Ethiopian central bank and ordering that money be wired to their bank accounts.

The DoJ says that Citibank, the second foreign bank to open a branch in Ethiopa, got fooled by faxed documents and cell phone numbers that turned out to be from Nigeria. Allegations say the scheme, which began in September, fell apart when several of the co-conspirators' banks were unable to process the payments and returned them to Citibank.

A Citigroup spokesperson told the Times: "We have worked closely with law enforcement throughout the investigation and are pleased it has resulted in this arrest. Citi constantly reviews and upgrades its physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to detect, prevent and mitigate theft."