Who owns an account in which N8.4billion has been found This
is the puzzle that detectives are battling to resolve, following the
discovery of the bank account which has no signatories.
The huge
deposit has been traced to a bank which is believed to have assisted the
money launderers to convert the cash to dollars.
There was
suspicion last night that the cash may have been wired into some foreign
accounts, but the government has filed an ex parte motion to place it
under temporary assets forfeiture.
A telecommunications company has gone to court, claiming ownership of the money, The Nation learnt. A whistle-blower alerted the government to strange deposits into the ECOBANK account by some suspected government officials. Of the many deposits, about N8.4billion was singled out for investigation in the interim.
A
source involved in the investigation said: “A whistle-blower alerted
the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, leading to the
involvement of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit and the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission( EFCC) in the investigation.
“The
probe of the account by detectives showed that the funds were routed
through the account of a telecoms giant but there was no disclosure of
the signatories to the account.
“Also, the list of depositors into the account was unknown but the sequence of deposits was tracked by detectives.”
The
source confirmed that an ex -parte application had been filed at the
Federal High Court 11 in Lagos, presided over by Justice Abdulazeez
Anka, to recover the cash under temporary forfeiture. The matter is coming up on March 3 for hearing. The Federal Government has hired two lawyers, Mr. John Samuel Opeyemi and Mr. Oluwafemi O. Aweda, to recover the funds.
Another
source also privy to the investigation said the probe so far indicated
that the cash paid into the account could be over N10billlion.
The
source added: “Detectives stumbled on separate deposit of N5billion and
N4billion. But investigation is at present concentrated on the recovery
of N8.4billion, which was changed to dollars and probably wired into
some accounts abroad.
“A telecommunications giant has approached the court to claim the ownership of the cash. “We have been demanding for the list of signatories to this account but it is yet to be provided.
The
Minister of Information, Alh. Lai Mohammed, on February 12 said the
whistle-blower policy had started yielding fruits, with the recovery of
US$151 million and N8billion.
The Minister said: “The looted
funds, which do not include the $9.2 million in cash allegedly owned by a
former Group Managing Director of the NNPC (which was also a dividend
of the whistle-blower policy), were recovered from just three sources
through whistle-blowers who gave actionable information to the office of
the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation.
“The
biggest amount of $136,676,600.51 was recovered from an account in a
commercial bank, where the money was kept under an apparently fake
account name, followed by N7billion and $15million from another person and N1billion from yet another.
‘’When
we told Nigerians that there was a primitive and mindless looting of
the national treasury under the last administration, some people called
us liars.
“Well, the whistle-blower policy is barely two months
old and Nigerians have started feeling its impact, seeing how a few
people squirrelled away public funds. “It is doubtful if any economy
in the world will not feel the impact of such mind-boggling looting of
the treasury as was experienced in Nigeria.
‘’Yet whatever has been recovered so far, including the $9.8million by the EFCC, is just a tip of the iceberg.”
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