Fraudulent rags to riches story of CBN personnel

The report came out from the blues this past week that some staff of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, will be prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC over fraudulent practices that made them richer by over N8 billion. Among the arrested and now standing trial is a Cash Assistant, who probably earns N50,000 per month but has over N130 million in one of his accounts. In all, six CBN staff are standing trial for converting dirty, almost rag looking cash meant for destruction to their private pockets by replacing the old naira notes with fresh mint; then turn around to push the filthy cash back into the banking system and at the same time distribute their own fresh mint to their individual accounts. This kind of fraud is called interleafing in banking circles.

According to CBN, “during a routine internal audit of the Bank's Cash Destruction activities in September 2014, the CBN Briquetting panel comprising Senior Bank staff from different branches noticed some anomalies at the Ibadan branch, and immediately reported this to the bank's management. On further investigation ordered by the Governor, it was discovered that a systematic scheme, which has been on for several years was being run in which mutilated higher denomination notes originally meant for destruction were swapped with lower denomination currencies. As soon as the bank's internal investigations concluded beyond reasonable doubt that some wrongdoing had occurred, the affected staff members, who are middle-level officers were, depending on gravity of offence, either summarily dismissed or immediately placed on indefinite suspension on October 21, 2014 and all handed over to the EFCC for further investigation and prosecution.” It is reassuring that this fraudulent scheme after investigation is restricted to the Ibadan branch. It is also important to note that the 16 other workers of commercial banks have been apprehended. These ones are accomplice to the crime. They include staff of the following banks: Zenith Bank, FCMB, Wema Bank, Access Bank, First Bank, Skye Bank, Ecobank and Sterling Bank. And the six CBN staff that are suspects in the crime are: Patience Okoro Eye, Abolabi Olufemi, Kolawole Babalola, Olaniran Muniru Adeola, Fatai Yusuf Adekunle and Ilori Adekunle Sunday. There is absolutely no doubt about the possibility of this scheme. This is so because there has been periods in the last three years or so that some parts of the country witnessed heavy supply of ragged looking and mutilated bank notes. It was so widespread that we even complained about it. It is even worrisome that the country pays for new currencies to be printed yet is left to use mutilated and rag tag notes that are easy host for germs. The odour is usually horrible. The naira notes, which are supposed to be one of our symbols of national pride, became a shameful parody due to the gluttony of a few. What this has taught therefore is not to take anything for granted. The systems that caused this kind of breach should no longer be tolerated. It is even more painful that this happened for a very long time running into several years, yet the CBN is expected to be above board in all ramifications. If the supplanting of mutilated notes could not be detected earlier, it is left to imagination other wrongs that may have been perpetrated. We only hope they are not such that will gravely affect our monetary policy. The level at which many public officials use every opportunity to line their pockets has become unpardonable. It is now impunity at every turn. They treat extant rules as in if they do not exist. Our new public officials prefer to enrich themselves than do their job. They don't mind if the whole country collapses. As has often been stated, the Nigerian public official, whether politician or civil servants don't mind to steal all the money in the till so long as their mind is set on a figure. If they want to steal N5billion, they will steal it anyway whether N1 trillion or the N5 billion is what is left in the vault. They know how to device schemes. They also know how to claim how smart they are. It is only the “smart” that makes more money than their contemporaries more so when the folk is “blessed” by God. We however commend the CBN for having the nerve to do the right thing. We believe that it should be taken for granted that every property or cash traced to these persons must be taken and returned to the treasury. We also recommend that in the event that they have spent parts of the money (which is inevitable) they must be made to be perennial debtors to the country called Nigeria until all the money is recovered.