Three Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) officials and five members of staff at First Bank appeared in court on Wednesday to face criminal charges of currency fraud, authorities said.

The Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), an anti-corruption body, said the bank employees were held in custody in Ibadan on theft and fraud charges totalling 8.27 billion naira ($42 million).

Another three CBN officials, two Sterling Bank staff and two from Ecobank were charged on Tuesday.

The central bank employees are accused of “stealing huge sums of mutilated higher denomination naira currencies meant to be exchanged for new notes,” the EFCC said in a statement.

No comment was immediately available from First Bank.

On Monday, the anti-graft body said a total of six central bank officials and 16 commercial bank staff had been accused of currency theft and recirculating over 8 billion naira ($40 million) of notes intended for destruction.

It said the officials pleaded not guilty to the charges and the court had ordered their detention pending bail applications.

President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in last week as leader of Africa’s biggest economy and top oil exporter. A crackdown on corruption was one of his central election campaign pledges.

The central bank regularly withdraws old or torn notes from circulation to replace them with new ones. Officials said the alleged scheme had no impact on money supply or inflation, which has hovered around 8.7 percent since April.

The naira has lost 8.5 percent of its value since the start of the year after sharp falls in the price of oil, Nigeria’s main export, forced the central bank into a de facto devaluation in February in order to save its dwindling foreign reserves.

The Federal High Court, Ibadan, on Thursday ordered the remand in prison of five other bank officials in the ongoing mutilated currency scam case.

The bank officials were arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on a 14-count charge bordering on forgery and possession of assets in excess of their legitimate, known and provable income and assets.

The bank officials remanded by Justice Adeyinka Faji are Kolawole Babalola, Olaniran Adeola and Toogun Philip of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The two others are Ajuwon Bolade and Samuel Ogbeide of the Zenith Bank of Nigeria.

They were accused of committing fraud in the sum of N900, 568,300 (Nine hundred million, five hundred and sixty eight thousand, three hundred naira) between 2011 and 2012 in Ibadan.

The said amount was said to have been part of money forwarded by the Zenith Bank to the CBN as mutilated currencies to be destroyed.

Other charges against them by the EFCC counsel, Rotimi Jacob, include making false entries in cash book belonging to the CBN and omitting to make a full disclosure and true entries in the account books.

The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

In his ruling, Faji ordered their remand at the Agodi Prisons in Ibadan and adjourned the matter till June 12 for hearing of their bail applications.

The currency scam trials began in Ibadan on Tuesday, with a number of CBN and commercial bank officials already remanded in prisons.

Emade:
Y are dey charging everybody now just hope the change is here to stay

ammyluv2002:
EFCC just started working. ...Good!

StepTwo:
bad

Missfavourblog:
Good

They were accused of committing fraud in the sum of N900, 568,300 (Nine hundred million, five hundred and sixty eight thousand, three hundred naira) between 2011 and 2012 in Ibadan.

chiefololade:

Who is wrong and who is correct?
This people get mind oo