The Central Bank of Nigeria on
Monday says it has dismissed or
suspended some of its six officials
that were involved in the N8bn
currency fraud in some of its
branches.
The apex bank in a statement in
Abuja by the Director, Corporate
Communications Department,
Ibrahim Mu’azu, stated that some of
the middle-level officers among
the accused had been summarily
dismissed or placed on indefinite
suspension, depending on gravity
of their offence.
It said, “The Central Bank of Nigeria
will like to inform the general
public of the chronology of events
that led the Management of the
CBN to hand over some
unscrupulous staff to the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission
for prosecution.
“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.
“This practice, known as
interleafing, basically labels a box
with a higher value than its true
content.
“As soon as the Bank’s internal
investigations concluded beyond
reasonable doubt that some
wrongdoing had occurred, the
affected members of staff, 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.”
The bank added that following the
incident, a nationwide audit of all
37 branches of the CBN was
conducted noting that the outcome
of the investigation showed that
this was an isolated scheme at the
Ibadan Branch.
It said it would continue to
collaborate with the EFCC to ensure
that affected CBN staff as well as
their accomplices in some
commercial banks, were brought to
justice.
The EFCC explained that five top
officials of the CBN and 16 others
were to be arraigned for alleged
complicity in an N8bn currency
fraud on Tuesday.
Head of Media and Publicity of the
EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, said in a
statement on Sunday that the
suspects were to be arraigned for
circulating defaced and mutilated
currency notes at the Federal High
Court, Ibadan, Oyo State on June 2.
Uwujaren said the 16 others,
expected to be arraigned alongside
the CBN bigwigs, were members of
staff of various commercial banks in
the country.
He said that the suspects would be
arraigned on five counts at the high
court.
by ROTMANLUV 2023-07-08, 17:34
