The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has commenced investigations into alleged money laundering allegations concerning the accounts of the Nigerian Embassy previously held in three banks in the Unit-ed States.
The investigation is based on a directive to that effect given by President Goodluck Jonathan following media reports that the accounts, held in Wells Fargo, Bank of America and M&T Bank in Washington DC and New York, were frozen by the US government upon discovery of large cash movements on the accounts within a short period.
EFCC Spokesman, Wilson Uwajere, told National Mirror in a telephone interview last night that investigations had begun, but were still at the preliminary stage.”Once the matter has been referred to us, you can be sure that we have started investigation but there is nothing yet to say. We are still at the preliminary stages,” he said.
An online news website had reported that the embassy’s accounts came under the focus of the US Treasury Departments after perceived unusual movement of funds within a relatively short period which prompted the US government to de-mand explanations about the movement and use of such funds.
The website had claimed that “These accounts attracted the attention of US authorities when it became apparent that over $3.6m were irregularly moved into and out of these accounts within a relatively short time. The U.S. Treasury Department through the State Department in a letter to the Embassy of Nigeria demand-ed an explanation for such unusual and irregular movements of funds.”
The three banks were said to have been directed by the US government to close the accounts of the Nigerian embassy in Washington and its consulate in New York on suspicion of money laundering. However, the Nigerian Embassy denied the reports last Wednesday saying that the accounts were closed on the advice of the banks following the intro-duction of new US bank-ing regulations targeted at curbing money launder-ing and funding of terrorist activities.
The embassy had said that huge amount of paperwork and man hours required to meet provi-sion of the US PATRIOTS Act prompted the banks to issue advisories to Nigeria and other countries advise to close their accounts and open new ones somewhere else within four months.
According to an embassy statement, “Those African banks including Nigeria which eventually found other banks could only do so through Amer-ican banks which had branches in their countries. This is what the Nigerian embassy did with the active support of our Central Bank. The Central Bank pays our allocation to the bank and missions operate it from here.”