By Emeka Samuel,Uyo
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has dismissed the notion by Nigerians that the agency operates just to persecute people.
It has also warned the public to be wary of the antics of financial and cyber criminals who hide under the guise of cryptocurrency and other digital transactions to perpetuate fraud.
Uyo Zonal Director of the agency ACE I Oshodi Johnson who made this known at a one day capacity building workshop for journalists and Civil Society Organisations in Uyo recently stressed that all the operations of the commission remained intelligence driven.
The Zonal Director explained that no one is arrested or invited for questioning without intelligence or information from members of the public or without having questions to answer in any matter and called for collaboration with the public on useful and credible intelligence on suspected financial and cyber criminals.
“I want the public to ignore the stereotype, EFCC is not an organisation that persecutes. We are an intelligent driven organization. I want to assure you that no person can be invited to the commission without having intelligence about him. It’s wrong that everybody wants to hide under the cover of persecution.” Johnson said.
He expressed worry that cyber crimes have assumed a higher and wider dimension and called on parents, management of schools and other Stakeholders to partner with the agency to curb the ugly menace.
In his paper titled, “Understanding Cryptocurrency Fraud and Other Emerging Financial Crimes,” ACE 11 Emeka Ukpai observed that new fraud techniques and technologies emerge everyday noting that limited regulatory framework and pseudonymity nature of cryptocurrency operations made it very complex for culprits to be traced and prosecuted even though their transactions are traceable.
Ukpai observed that most stolen funds are now hidden in wallets while some use cryptocurrencies to hide gains and evade taxes through what he described as “New Offshore banking.”
Some of the technological frauds he said include Ponzi Schemes, Rug Pull, Phishing and social engineering, sim-swapping attacks, pump and dump scheme and others even as he warned the public especially the youths to avoid these scams by not sharing private wallet keys and avoiding too good to be true offers or returns.
He also encouraged the public to ensure that they make use of, “Enabling two factor authentication and verifying the URLs(address of webpage) and wallet addresses.’
Also speaking, Head, Legal and Prosecution Department, Uyo Directorate, DCE Ifeyinwa Azegbeobor lamented that Nigeria has continued to lose Billions of Naira annually to corruption and fraud saying that prosecution of financial crimes should be taken seriously to deter people from venturing into it.
Azegbeobor also identified that some weak, outdated and vague legislations have continued to hamper the full prosecution of financial crimes calling for legal reforms where laws would be updated to cover modern financial crimes including cybercrime and beneficial ownership as well as clarifying overlapping laws to prevent conflicts between anti corruption agencies.
She stated that the CSOs and Journalists have a role to play in the fight against corruption by vetting tip-offs(whistle blowing), evidence reservation and verification of information before going to press for the media practitioners.
“Civil Society and Journalism are essential partners as evidence gatherers, monitors and public educators, but they must work with prosecutors responsibly to avoid undermining fair trials.” She said.
On his part, the Spokesperson of EFCC, DCE Dele Oyewale in his paper entitled, “The Role of CSOs and Media in Driving a Preventive Framework,” urged the media to work towards changing the erroneous perception of the public towards the commission urging them to partner with the EFCC in the fight against corruption.
Oyewale who was represented by Aisha Mohammed, Head of Enlightenment and Reorientation, EFCC, said the commission has set up of anti corruption clubs in secondary and tertiary institutions to instill into young people the spirit of aversion to crime.
He urged the public to feed the commission with credible information or genuine complaint when neccesary by sending in their concerns to EFCC official social media platforms or to the nearest office adding that fight against corruption remained a fight for all and not for EFCC alone.
