The Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) said it has concluded arrangements to arraign six top executives of the Central Bank of Nigeria and 16 others for a scam involving the theft and re-circulation of defaced and mutilated currencies.
The EFCC said in a statement by its Head of Media and Publicity, Wilson Uwujaren, that 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.
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).
“The remaining sixteen suspects are drawn from various commercial banks who were found to have conspired with the CBN executives to swing the heist, he said.
The 16 suspects who colluded with the CBN officials to commit the fraud are officials drawn from Zenith Bank, FCMB, Wema Bank, Access Bank, First Bank, Skye Bank, Ecobank and Sterling Bank.
The officials helped themselves with the mutilated N8 billion cash.
They rather burnt 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 N6,575,549,370.00 was cornered and discreetly recycled by light-fingered top executives of the CBN at the Ibadan, Oyo State branch.
Pin the words of Uwujaren, “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 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 hitch for the first time.
In banking parlance, Briquetting is the 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.
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 N1,000 notes.
A similar case, according to reports, had been discovered on September 22, 2014 when a box that was supposed to contain N500 notes to the tune of N5 billion was filled with old newspapers.
But unlike in the past, the latest fraud could not be swept under the carpet as a member of the Briquetting Panel from the Osogbo, Osun State branch blew the lid on the illicit deal.
Uwujaren explained that “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.
