N8 Billion Fraud: EFCC Nabs 6 CBN Officials & 16 Other Bankers

Central Bank of Nigeria's top 6 officials and 16 other workers of commercial banks in the country have been arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, for a mega scam involving N8 billion. The suspects were picked up by operatives of the anti-graft agency for stealing and putting into circulation defaced and mutilated Nigerian currency notes to the tune of N8 billion meant for destruction. All the suspects have already been taken into EFCC custody preparatory to their arraignment at the Federal High Court, Ibadan, tomorrow. The trial will run till June 4 in a bid to speed up the prosecution of the suspects by the court.

A statement signed by the Head of Media of the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, gave the names of the suspects as: 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).
Burned old newspapers in place of defaced Naira notes

The 16 suspects, who colluded with the CBN officials to commit the fraud, are officials drawn from Zenith Bank, FCMB, Wema Bank, Access Bank, FirstBank, Skye Bank, Ecobank and Sterling Bank.

The officials helped themselves with the mutilated N8 billion cash and burned old newspapers in place of the defaced Naira notes, thereby making a mockery of the CBN rule relating to such money.

But the suspects ran out of luck when one of the bank officials petitioned the EFCC, alleging on November 3, 2014 that over N6,575,549, 370 was cornered and discreetly recycled by light-fingered top executives of the CBN at the Ibadan branch.

The suspects, who were members of the Briquetting Panel, which handles the destruction of defaced notes from commercial banks, decided to play a fast one on the nation and smile to their banks but ran into a trouble yesterday.

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.

Source: Vanguard
Photo credit: SaharaReporters