The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Wednesday recovered huge sums of money in sealed wrappers in a house in the Ikoyi area of Lagos State.
A statement by the agency said its officials “stormed a residential building in the 7th Floor of a four – bedroom apartment at Osborne Towers located at 16, Osborne Road Ikoyi, Lagos, where a humongous find of foreign currencies and Naira notes to the tune of $43.4m, £27,800 and N23.2m was uncovered”.
The total amount recovered is more than N13billion when converted using the current rate of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Investigation into the identity of the owner continues.
Wednesday’s operation followed a whistleblower’s confidential alert received by the commission’s Lagos office regarding some noticed suspicious movement of bags in and out of a particular apartment in the building.
According to an unnamed whistleblower, the movers of the bags pretended they were bringing in bags of clothes.
Another source who is conversant with the apartment of interest indicated that a woman usually appeared on different occassions with Ghana Must Go bags.
“She comes looking haggard, with dirty clothes but her skin didn’t quite match her outward appearance, perhaps a disguise,” the source said.
On getting to the building, EFCC operatives met the entrance door locked.
“Inquiries from the guards at the gate explained that nobody resides in the apartment, but some persons come in and out once in a while.
“In compliance with the magisterial order contained in the warrant, the EFCC used minimum force to gain entrance into the apartment.
“Monies were found in two of the four bedroom apartment. Further probe of the wardrobe by operatives in one of the rooms, was found to be warehousing three fire proof cabinets disguisedly hidden behind wooden panels of the wardrobe,” the EFCC statement continued.
The building where the money was found is said to be owned by Osborne Towers Resident Association but the identity of the owner of the funds was not immediately confirmed.
Last Friday, the EFCC uncovered N448, 850,000 in a shop at LEGICO Shopping Plaza, Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Also, N250, 558,670 in foreign and local currencies were found in a Bureau de Change operator shop in Balogun Market, Lagos.
With the assistance of whistleblowers, the EFCC has recovered N12,360,814,000 in the past five days in Lagos alone.
