Money Laundering: EFCC Lawyer Slams Abuja Estates Owners

With the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari winding down in about 37 days, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says it is zeroing on individuals and organizations hiding under real estate to perpetrate money laundering and other financial crimes in the country.

According to the Commission’s lawyer, Chris Mishela, there are strong evidence to believe that many estates springing up in Abuja, Lagos and other parts of the country are allegedly proceeds of fraud and money laundering within the nation’s financial system.

Mishela, who was speaking at a training session for journalists on effective reporting of the economic and financial crimes in Benin, the Edo State capital, said; “In Abuja, you see so many estates springing up all over the place and we believe the sources of these funds are from unlawful transactions.

“The funds are illegally gotten either from government or from international crime that is used to launder through estate business.

“Real estate is one of the designated and non-designated professions that is also under our obligation under the establishment to do a full disclosure.

“So EFCC is actually working to look into that dimension and the new money laundering Act has provided an opening for the government to look into the aspect of real estate as we saw under the Act.”

However, the anti-graft agency Counsel admitted that; “It is not an investigation that is currently going on, rather we have identified specifically that these are proceeds of crime.”

Mishela further explained that the training was meant to keep journalists abreast of the framework of new anti-money laundering Act 2022 and the role they were expected to play in the process of curbing financial crimes nationwide.

Similarly, he said it has become imperative to make the public aware of the expanded scope of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act 2022 as against the repealed Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2011 in order to bring all stakeholders to be on the same page in the fight against perpetrators of financial crimes in Nigeria.

In her intervention at the seminar, Head of EFCC’s Cyber Crimes Unit in Benin, Mrs Oluwakemi Olawoyin, charged the public not to open any link which they did not initiate while on the Internet.

Her presentation on the risks and benefits associated with digital payment system highlighted tactics for safe transactions on the various e-business platforms.

This is as she also advised the public to beware of unsecured sites as they transact businesses and other communication on the internet.

Also speaking at the occasion, Assistant Commander, Public Affairs Unit of EFCC, Mr Dele Oyewale, challenged journalists on investigative reporting to cooperate with the anti-graft Commission by assisting it  with leads for fraud investigations.