The International Police Organisation, INTERPOL, has launched a new module codenamed Silver Notices to tackle the scourge of money laundering and illicit financial flows worldwide, especially in Africa.
The Silver Notices aim to track and repatriate stolen funds globally to their originating country.
This disclosure was made in Abuja on Monday by the INTERPOL vice president for Africa, Garba Umar while opening a four-day training workshop for Nigerian law enforcement agencies at the EFCC Academy.
Umar said money laundering across Africa and the world has assumed a monstrous dimension, and INTERPOL has designed Silver Notices to combat the menace.
He said, “Evidence has shown that every hour, hundreds of thousands of dollars are flowing out of Nigeria to the region and across the world, laundered before it reaches the pockets of criminals to enjoy the profits of their crimes, while the hardworking and honest Nigerians pay the price of crime.
“With every successful laundering of criminal money, our country becomes more prone to crime: more drugs, more fraud, more corruption and more violence. Every time criminal money is successfully laundered, our financial institutions take an additional blow.”
Also speaking at the event, the executive chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Ola Olukoyede, harped on the need for enhanced collaboration in tackling financial crimes.
He said that the complex nature of corruption worldwide could only be broken by the might of collaborative actions by every stakeholder.
Olukoyede, who spoke through the director of Fraud Risk Assessment and Control, FRAC, of the EFCC, Mr Francis Usani, appraised the pivotal role of the EFCC in tackling corrupt practices, especially its impressive records of convictions and recoveries and expressed optimism that with the new emphasis on preventive framework in combating financial crimes by the Commission, more significant progress would be made.
In his remark, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Nigeria, Mr Matsunaga Kazuyoshi, described the workshop as an essential joint initiative between Japan and Nigeria to combat financial crimes.
