Those whose stocks in trade is to deal with fake currencies including local and international currencies to the detriment of their governments and venurable members of the public were shamefully disgraced and made caricature of on Tuesday January 31, 2023 as they received the worse disgrace and humiliation if their lives in the hands of eagle-eyed and vigilant officers and men of the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, Seme Command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were actually caught red-handed with loads of fake dollars notes amount amounting to $6m USD (Equivalent of N2.763b at the exchange rate of N460.52) at Gbaji axis of Seme border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their Waterloo came when they even tried to lure the officers of the NCS into accepting bribe of $150 USD from them. Unfortunately, every effort they made to bribe their ways through, met brickwalls as Comptroller Dera Nnadi’s intelligent officers and men at Gbaji checkpoint along Seme Badagry expressway refused taking bribe but prefer arresting them.
These able-bodied and we’ll trained officers and men on patrol wholeheartedly rejected and call a bluff of those evil men and their bribe and still went ahead arrested and confiscated the said fake dollars and even the means of conveyance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the young and vibrant Comptroller (Nnadi), who was just posted to the border Command in just a week and three days period, he said:
“Gentlemen of the press, at 030 hours, on the 31st of January, 2023, customs officers at Gbaji checkpoint intercepted a vehicle crying two persengers and upon searching them, they discovered the currency you are seeing here this afternoon being displayed”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Customs Area Controller, CAC of Seme, Comptroller Nnadi, mni further confirmed that those currencies were fake US dollar bills and had the serial numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“When we counted them, we discovered that these are fake UD dollar bills. It is worth $6m USD bills in fake currency. But it will only take eagle eyes of trained officers to dictate that they are fake.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hinting further on the shocking discovery they made after interception, Comptroller Nnadi said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“One of the landmarks discovery we have made is that some of them bear the same serial number. Besides that, it will be very difficult for you to identify that they are fake”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Responding on the question of whether any arrest was made in this regard, the CAC said two persons were arrested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Two persons (suspects conveying the fake currency from Nigeria to the Republic of Benin, two suspects were arrested in respect of that and in connection with the crime and are currently in our custody, pending investigation and persecution. Further details on the arrest and the amount of the money would be made available after proper investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Also arrested few hours after this, two other passengers at Gbetrome base in a different vehicle and upon searching them and their baggages, we discovered some international passports. Six international passports were intercepted. But one unique thing about them is that all the six passports bears different names with the same picture. Maltese international passports with the same picture of a lady but bearing different names.
The passports is for Malta but bears s picture supposedly an European lady, bearing different names for all the six passports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Related to this, also the same lady also has six drivers’ licenses, bearing her photographs with six different names.
The significant of this is that we are dealing with a very dangerous syndicate here that moves across the borders”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The CAC added that the syndicate is not just dealing with one country but six countries.
“Recall that we have six other nations across the border here. Nigeria, Benin Republic, Ghana, Togo, Ivory coast and Senigal.
It’s my suspicion that this particular syndicate that (this woman) is running will use each particular passport to a particular country and dispose of that passport and the driver’s license and continue with another country with another passport and another driver’s license. With different identify, the same face but with different passport. The same passport but different names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Perhaps working with the same syndicate. Here , we have passport belonging to Niger Republic a ND other nations. He was also arrested with the two people. This one is Benin Republic (displaying the seized passports). In all, they were ten passports”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While responding to questions, Comptroller Nnadi said the seized passports were intercepted at Gbetrome axis of Seme, trying to be moved out of the country. In all the seizures, he said investigations are still ongoing as arrests have already been made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He actually confirmed that the seized foreign currencies were fake.
“For the currency, we have two suspects and for the passports, we have two suspects too.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the means of conveyance, the command said, the means e conveyance were also detained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking on the next steps to be taken after the seizures of the fake dollars, Nnadi said:
“Is most likely that this currency would be handled over to the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC or National Financial Intelligence Unit, NFIU, whichever the customs manament deams necessary. It is expected that they are going to carry out further investigations. This ones displayed on the table are not the only ones, there are other packs\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On what could possibly be the intention of the syndicates, Comptroller Nnadi, mni have this to say.
“You will see that by the time we commenced full investigation into this, we will unravel the intention of those behind this”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are those (officers and men of the service), who facilitated the interception, officers who refused to compromise at hash economic situation. But said there would be encouragement for such officers.
The CAC responded to this in this way:
“Criminal elements would always want to mix up with the real people. But as a matter of fact, upon arresting these people, the two people that were arrested alongside, made attempts of inducing Officers with the sum of $150 USD. They actually promised to call their boss who is in Lagos to come down and give the officers the sum of $150 USD, genuine one money not fake. But the officers refused and rather arrested them. I am going to recommend these officers to the management to be rewarded,” the CAC pledged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reminiscing, Comptroller Nnadi reminded the newsmen of similar incident at Tin Can Island Command, where he once served as DC Enforcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Recall, when I was DC Enforcement at Tin Can Island Command, similar thing happened, we seized six containers of arms, officers were actually rewarded, several of them were promoted to the next ranks. So management have set precedents would also want to do something. Several others have also received letters of recommendations and management is not unaware to reward such people when regular seizures like these are made. Thanks you!”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
***As His Officers Rejected $150 USD Bribe ***Still Impounded the Fake Dollars By Ambrose Obioma Okehi (News Emperor) Those whose stocks in trade is to deal with fake currencies including local and international currencies to the detriment of their governments and venurable members of the public were shamefully disgraced and made caricature of on Tuesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsemperormagazines.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsemperormagazines.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsemperormagazines.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsemperormagazines.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsemperormagazines.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsemperormagazines.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"https:\/\/newsemperormagazines.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsemperormagazines.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsemperormagazines.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsemperormagazines.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}