NEWS ANALYSIS
By Agharanya Cecilia
A penny well earned is better than a pound stolen; such is the case of the fraud involving an organised set of criminally minded Central Bank of Nigeria officials and some staffers of two or more banks. Unlike most frauds, this particular one is peculiar in nature as it involves mutilated cash that was meant for destruction, but was systematically re-circulated into the economy.
Every day, they say, is for the thief but one day is for the owner; that “one day” came on 3 November 2014 via a petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission alleging that over N6, 575, 549, 370.00 was pilfered and discreetly recycled by greedy top executives of the CBN at the Ibadan branch.
The story: “The suspects, who were members of the briquetting panel, plotted their way to infamy on 8 September 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. This practice involves depositor banks taking their 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 N1000 notes. A similar case, according to investigation, had been discovered on 22 September 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 was beyond 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 each of the suspects.”
However, the last batch of suspects connected with the eight-billion-naira fraud at the Ibadan branch of Central Bank of Nigeria have been arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The suspects are two workers of Zenith Bank Ajuwon Bolade and Samuel Ogbeide along with three members of staff of Central Bank of Nigeria, who had appeared in all the seven cases of the fraud. With this development, the number of suspects involved in the fraud is now twenty-seven with five of them said to be at large.
This makes the suspects currently standing trail to be twenty-two in seven separate cases. Out of this number, six are workers of CBN, while the remaining sixteen are bankers from six different commercial banks in Ibadan namely: Eco Bank, Sterling Bank, First Bank, Wema Bank, First City Monument Bank and Zenith Bank. Over fifty counts charges bothering on fraud, forgery, conspiracy, fraudulent acquisition assets in excess of their legitimate and provable income were levelled against the accused persons.
It was baffling to note that one of the suspects, a cash assistant at First Bank was alleged to have over two-hundred-million naira in four different accounts in another bank and other landed property, well over what his earnings could account for.
However, those who appeared before Justice Adeyinka Faaj on Thursday 4 June 2015 were accused of inducing the CBN to deliver the sum of one billion, sixty million naira to Zenith Bank as against the actual sum of one hundred and fifty nine million, four hundred and thirty one thousand seven hundred naira on the false pretence that the one hundred and six boxes containing supposed mutilated currencies which were taken to the Ibadan branch of CBN contained a total sum of one billion, sixty million naira.
The prosecuting counsel, Mr Rotimi Jacob, moved that the suspect be kept in prison till adjourned date while Justice Adeyinka Faaj granted the prayer and adjourned the case till 12 June to hear their bail application. With this ruling, all the suspects are expected to be in prison except the nursing mother who was given the privilege to be with Oyo Sate C.I.D Iyaganku because of her nine-month- old baby boy.
