The huge deposit has been traced to a bank which is believed to have assisted the money launderers to convert the cash to dollars. There was suspicion that the cash may have been wired into some foreign accounts, but the government has filed an ex parte motion to place it under temporary assets forfeiture.
A telecommunications company has gone to court, claiming ownership of the money. A whistle-blower alerted the government to strange deposits into the ECOBANK account by some suspected government officials.
A source involved in the investigation said: “A whistle-blower alerted the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, leading to the investigation. The probe showed that the funds were routed through the account of a telecoms giant but there was no disclosure of the signatories to the account.
Also, the list of depositors into the account was unknown but the sequence of deposits was tracked by detectives.” The FG has hired two lawyers, Mr. John Samuel Opeyemi and Mr. Oluwafemi O. Aweda, to recover the funds.
Another source also privy to the investigation said the probe so far indicated that the cash paid into the account could be over N10billlion. The source added: “Detectives stumbled on separate deposit of N5billion and N4billion.
But investigation is at present concentrated on the recovery of N8.4billion, which was changed to dollars and probably wired into some accounts abroad. “A telecommunications giant has approached the court to claim the ownership of the cash. We have been demanding for the list of signatories to this account but it is yet to be provided.”
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