How We Caught Smugglers With $2m, $6m At Nigerian Airports – EFCC

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said the agency has arrested smugglers and recovered about $2m and $6m separately at Nigerian Airports at different occasions.

Director of EFCC Operations, Abdulkarim Chukkol, made the revelation on the ‘Good Morning Nigeria’ breakfast show on NTA.

Chukkol said money laundering was the reason some Bureau De Change (BDC) operators were recently arrested in Lagos and Abuja.

According to him, “Through the commission’s presence at the major gateway into the country, many arrests of cash smugglers have been made and humongous sums in foreign currencies recovered.

“Some were arrested with excess of $6 million, others with $2 million and we know that these huge sums were not meant to be used in buying goods but stolen monies being laundered out of the country.”

The EFCC also said the recent arrest of some Bureau De Change operators across the country especially in Lagos and Abuja, was incidental to the Commission’s overall efforts in sanitising the foreign exchange sector.

The EFCC further said that the Commission considers foreign exchange malpractice as an economic crime against the Nigerian state, adding that the Commission as far back as 2016 established a full-fledged Section known as Foreign Exchange Malpractices Section and for over 10 years maintained visible “presence at all airports in the country to checkmate incidences of bulk cash movement outside Nigeria which is another aspect of this menace.”

Chukkol added that EFCC did not only recover some of these monies, but secured their forfeiture to the federal government, while the culprits were prosecuted.

He emphasised the need for active inter-agency and stakeholders collaboration, pointing out that many of the over 6,000 registered BDCs do not belong to the Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria and therefore out of the orbit of regulators.

“The CBN guidelines are clear regarding returns by BDCs, but how many of them do this?” he asked.