In less than a month that a 24-years old man Mr Abubakar Sheriff was caught at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos, Akinyemi Adetule,a security officer of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) was arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) when he attempted to launder $1.4 million (N218m) in the same airport.
It was gathered that Adetule was able to bypass all security check points because he was a security officer of FAAN and was putting on his staff tag, allowing him to be able to move freely in the airport without drawing any suspicion.
According to Mr Iliyasu Kwarbai, the Head of Operations EFCC , “The suspect is a FAAN security guard. He wore his tag and was thus able to move freely in the airport without drawing suspicion. He was carrying a bag and it went through the scanner. It is curious that such a huge sum went through the scanner undetected or was it a case of conspiracy and collusion?
“The suspect passed through NDLEA and Customs and he went to the waiting area; but he started making phone calls instead of proceeding to board his flight. We accosted him and noticed that his bag was heavy. “When we searched him, we saw the large sum of money, which he said did not belong to him and that he was only trying to telephone the owner who never showed up,”
In a reaction to the incident, FAAN’s Head of Corporate Communications,Mr Yakubu Dati said in a statement that “The suspect,who is an employee of the security directorate, was neither on duty nor on an official assignment. He was consequently accosted by security personnel at the Customs Currency Declaration Desk and has since been handed over to the EFCC custody for investigations adding that he was so glad that the suspect was arrested assuring his undiluted corporation in unraveling the crime.
DailyPost gathered that the money was given to Adetule by Mr. Ifeanyi Urama, a bureau de change operator who also doubles as clearing and forwarding agent but said the money belongs to a yet-to-be-identified person.
Adetula who claimed he had worked for FAAN for over five years said he was promised N10,000 if he could successfully get past security with the money.
He said “Ifeanyi called me in the morning and told me to help him to take the bag and gave me someone’s phone number and told me to call the person once I get to the area where the airplane would board.”
He said this was the first time he would commit such crime.
The EFCC boss said the agency have seized over $10.2m (N1.6bn) in a period of 3 weeks at Muritala Mohammed Airport alone adding that launderers had begun to devise new means of beating security due to frequent arrests by the commission.
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