Banks’ Compliance Officers Conniving With Fraudsters – EFCC

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has said compliance officers of banks across the country are conniving with fraudsters, urging them to desist from unauthorised disclosure of its investigation activities and request from banks to their customers.

The commission’s executive chairman, Ola Olukoyede, who gave the warning during a meeting with compliance officers of banks in Ibadan, said that the commission was aware that some compliance officers were giving some information to customers.

Olukoyede, who spoke through the acting zonal director of the Ibadan zonal command, Hauwa Garba Ringim, decried the unhealthy support fraudsters receive from the banking sector in Nigeria.
The commission boss stressed that such an act was posing considerable challenges and concerns to the commission, “The EFCC is aware of the fact that compliance officers give information to their clients regarding letters of investigation activities written to the banks from the EFCC”.

He insisted that such attempts usually jeopardise the investigation exercise of financial crimes and delay corruption cases from being filed before the law court.

According to him, it is posing considerable challenges and concerns to the commission.

The EFCC’s boss also urged them to always respond to letters received from the Commission with certified true copies, including instruments of transactions of beneficiaries or sources, as this will expedite the process of investigation to a logical conclusion.

Olukoyede maintained that illegal dealings and trading in naira with the Point-of-sale (POS) operators must stop.

“What we notice and see around lately is that Nigerians can only withdraw a small amount of their money with the banks in Automated Teller Machine (ATMs) but POS operators evidently go around with huge amounts of money gotten from the banks.

“This is not fair to Nigerians and we must fight it head-on,” he declared.