The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Wednesday raided a house in Ikoyi, Lagos recovering about $43m, N23m and £27,000 in cash.
The total cash when converted using the current rate of the Central Bank of Nigeria amounts to N11,661,314,000.It was learnt that the recovery was made at a service apartment located at Osborne Towers.
The identity of the owner of the funds had yet to be ascertained as of press time but the recovery was made due to information from a whistle-blower.
In line with the whistleblower policy of the Federal Government, the whistleblower is expected to receive nothing less than N500m as a reward.
A source at the EFCC said, “We received a tip-off from a whistleblower regarding the existence of a huge sum of cash in an apartment in Osborne Towers, Ikoyi. We were overwhelmed to see such a huge sum of money.
“We had to quickly notify officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria to come with counting machines. We have been counting the money all day and everything will be transferred to the CBN this night because we don’t have a vault that can store such a huge sum of money.
“I can tell you that the whistleblower policy is one of the best things the Federal Government has ever done to help the fight against corruption.”
As of 8:51pm on Wednesday, the money was still being counted.
Investigations by our correspondent revealed that the total cash recovery made by the EFCC in Lagos alone in the last five days sums up to N12,360,814,000 while the amount traced to private accounts sums up to N4bn.
In essence, the EFCC had made a recovery of about N16bn in the last five days due to the assistance of whistleblowers.
On Friday last week, the EFCC uncovered N448,850,000 in a shop at LEGICO Shopping Plaza, Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos. The money stashed in several ‘Ghana Must Go’ bags were in N500 and N1000 denominations, hidden in a shop awaiting conversion into foreign currency.
On Monday, the commission again recovered €547,730 and £21,090 as well as N5,648,500 from a Bureau de Change operator in Balogun Market, Lagos. The figure sums up to N250,558,670 when converted to naira, according to the EFCC.
Sources at the anti-graft agency told our correspondent that due to the existence of the Bank Verification Number and other anti-corruption mechanisms put in place by the CBN and other anti-graft agencies, it had become difficult for politically exposed persons to deposit money in their private accounts.
Detectives at the commission told our correspondent that many more recoveries are expected to be made in the coming days as long as whistleblowers are protected.
Punch