EFCC recovers various sums, secures 42 convictions in Abuja zone

The Abuja Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says it has recovered not less than N750 million from public treasury looters in 2019.

Head of the zonal office, Mr Aminu Aliyu, disclosed this at a media briefing on the achievements of the commision in the past 11 months.

He gave breakdown of the total recovery as N725,246,287; 49,673 dollars; 2,330 Euros and 23,400 pounds.

He said that in a bid to ensure adequate coverage and easy accessibility of the commission’s services, new zonal offices were created of which Abuja zonal office was one of them.

He added that throughout the year, the Abuja zonal office has been relentless on the commission’s mandate and ensuring that corruption was fought to a standstill.

“As the year is gradually rolling to an end, we felt the need to brief our stakeholders in this fight on our activities and achievement so far.

“This year, we have received over 615 petitions of which 305 are already under investigation. 164 are with the legal unit for advice and possible prosecution while 74 are in court.

“We have secured 42 convictions while the rest were either transferred to sister agencies or closed for lack of merit.

“We also recovered exotic cars which are proceeds of crime as well as laptops and phones that were used as instruments for financial crime.

“Some of these recoveries were forfeited to the federal government while others have been returned to the victims based on the outcome of the investigation and court’s directive,” he said.

According to him, fighting corruption is a serious task which needs our collective effort to end in the country.

He explained that the zonal office has been dynamic in its investigation in order to accommodate the emerging trends in financial crimes such as Ponzi scheme, currency fraud, business email compromise, identity theft and so on.

“Our intensified efforts in fighting cyber crimes led to our collaboration with the FBI and other international agencies to investigate cases traced to Nigeria.

“This collaboration has also contributed to our successes within the year,” he added.

He, therefore, called on the media, stakeholders in this fight against corruption in order to achieve a corruption free Nigeria.