Six Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) officials and 16 others from some commercial banks are to face trial for alleged ₦8 billion fraud, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said yesterday.
The suspects, the agency alleged, stole and recirculated defaced and mutilated currencies.
A statement by the Head of Media and Publicity of EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, said: "The suspects drawn from various business units of the apex bank are to be arraigned 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 of Security, CBN Ibadan) and Ilori Adekunle Sunday (Akure).
"The remaining 16 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 becloud their sense of judgment and responsibility, when they elected to help themselves to tons 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 commission gave further details on how the fraud was perpetrated by the suspects.
The statement added: "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 ₦6,575,549,370 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, 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 was alleged to have found one of the currency boxes filled only with old newspapers rather than 20 bundles of ₦1000 notes.
A similar case, according to investigation, had been discovered on September 22, 2014 when a box that was supposed to contain ₦500 notes to the tune of ₦5billion 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, who was the Head of the Briquetting Panel; Treasury Assistant; Coordinator and Head of Security at 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."
The Nation
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