How Central Bank Officials Defrauded Nigeria Of N8 Billion – EFCC

Top officials of the Nigeria Central Bank,
CBN, colluded with officials of private
banks to defraud the country of about
N8 billion, an anti-graft agency has said.
The EFCC said on Sunday that it is ready
to prosecute Patience Okoro Eye, Afolabi
Olufemi, Kolawole Babalola, Olaniran
Muniru Adeola, Fatai Yusuf Adekunle,
and Ilori Adekunle Sunday, all top
officials of the Central Bank from
various states, after concluding its
investigations.
Officials of private banks who colluded
with the Central Bank officials will also
be prosecuted, the EFCC spokesperson,
Wilson Uwujaren, stated in a statement.
The scam involved the “theft and
recirculation of defaced and mutilated
currencies,” the anti-graft agency
stated.The officials are set to be
arraigned on Tuesday.
Read the full statement below:
EFCC To Arraign Six CBN Big Wigs,16
Others for N8billion Currency Fraud
June 2
The Economic and Financial Crime
Commission, EFCC has concluded
arrangement to arraign in court, five top
executives of the Central Bank of Nigeria,
CBN, implicated in a mega scam
involving the theft and recirculation of
defaced and mutilated currencies.
The suspects drawn from various
business units of the apex bank are to be
docked by the anti-graft agency before a
Federal High Court sitting in Ibadan,
Oyo State, from Tuesday June 2, 2015 to
Thursday June 4, 2015.
They include Patience Okoro Eye
( Abuja) , Afolabi Olufemi( Lagos),
Kolawole Babalola (Ibadan), Olaniran
Muniru Adeola (Ibadan), Fatai Yusuf,
Adekunle (Head, Security, CBN, (Ibadan)
and Ilori Adekunle Sunday,(Akure).
The remaining sixteen suspects are
drawn from various commercial banks
who were found to have conspired with
the CBN executives to swing the heist.
All the suspects who are currently in the
custody of the EFCC are now ruing the
day they literally allowed greed and
craze for materialism to be loud their
sense of judgement and responsibility,
when they elected to help themselves to
tones of defaced Naira notes. Instead of
carrying out the statutory instruction to
destroy the currency, they substituted it
with newspapers neatly cut to Naira
sizes and proceeded to recycle the
defaced and mutilated currency.
The fraud is partly to blame for the
failure of government monetary policy
over the years as currency mop up
exercises by the apex bank failed to
check the inflationary pressure on the
economy.
The lid on the scam which is widely
suspected to have gone on unchecked for
years, was blown on November 3, 2014
via a petition to the EFCC alleging that
over N6, 575, 549, 370.00( Six Billion,
Five Hundred and Seventy-Five Million,
Five-Hundred and Forty-Nine Thousand,
Three Hundred and Seventy Naira) was
cornered and discreetly recycled by light
manipulated top executives of the CBN at
the Ibadan branch.
The suspects, who were members of the
Briquetting Panel, plotted their way to
infamy on September 8, 2014, while
carrying out a Briquetting exercise at the
CBN Branch, Ibadan.
In banking parlance, Briquetting is
disintegration and destruction of
counted and audited dirty notes. By this
practice, depositor banks usually take
mutilated notes to the CBN in exchange
for fresh notes equivalent of the amount
deposited.
The depositor banks in this instance are
Zenith Bank, FCMB, Wema Bank, Access
Bank, First Bank, Skye Bank, Ecobank
and Sterling Bank.
But while carrying out the assignment,
the team were alleged to have found one
of the currency boxes filled only with old
newspapers rather than 20 bundles of
N1000 notes.
A similar case, according to
investigation, had been discovered on
September 22, 2014 when a box that was
supposed to contain N500 notes to the
tune of N5billion was filled with old
newspapers.
Unlike in the past, this fraud could not
be swept under the carpet, as a member
of the Briquetting Panel from the Osogbo
branch blew the lid on the illicit deal. In
a statement, the informant stated that
the exercise was designed to last
between August 4 and 8, 2014.
The 35-year-old, however, stated that she
discovered a strange ‘sight’ while
opening the third box on the second day
of the exercise. It was a discovery that
beat her ken.
She added that she confronted the other
members of the panel, including Eye,
Head, Briquetting Panel; Treasury
Assistant; Coordinator and Head,
Security, CBN, Ibadan, who all assured
her that they would look into it. But she
later found out that it was all a ruse. She
said she later found out that Eye not only
maintained sealed lips over the matter
but omitted it from her report.
A five-count charge awaits the suspects
as they prepare to face the wrath of the
law.