EFCC: We recovered N231.6bn, $70m in one year

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says it recovered over N231.623 billion between May 2023 and May 2024.

An internal document of the agency verified by a source within the commission also summarises cases investigated and other recoveries made by the anti-graft agency.

The document showed that the commission received a “record-breaking dimension” of about 15,753 petitions in the period under review.

The commission investigated 12,287 petitions out of which 5,376 cases were filed and 3,451 were secured convictions. 

The recoveries within the same period include N231,623,186,004.74; US$70,260,544.18; £29,264.50 (GBP);  Euro 208,297.10;$3,950.00 (Canadian ); $740.00 (Australian); 35,000.00 (Rand); 42,390.00 (UAE Dirhams);247.00 (Riyals); and ¥74,754.00 (Yuan).

The commission said the changes effected in the EFCC by President Bola Tinubu has enhanced the performance of the agency.

Meanwhile, the EFCC has set up an immigration fraud section in some of its commands across the country “to tackle immigration fraud and the accompanying reputational damage it is causing Nigeria”.

Ola Olukoyede, EFCC chair, disclosed this on Tuesday while receiving a delegation of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), led by Rabhi Abdallah, its director-general, at the commission’s corporate headquarters in Abuja.

“Apart from what we have done in the foreign exchange market, two weeks ago we set up an Immigration Fraud Section. They are in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano and in all our zonal commands where we have embassies because we have seen quite a lot of fraud in that area,” Olukoyede said.

“They have scammed people a lot, so we want to devote our attention and resources to that area to ensure that Nigerians and diplomatic missions in Nigerian would not be victims of visa and immigration scams again.”