Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, says an investigation by the commission has revealed how a certain minister purchased a property through a bank manager.
Bawa recounted the situation on Tuesday during an interview with Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme.
The anti-corruption chief identified the real estate sector as a major conduit for money laundering.
Bawa disclosed that EFCC investigated a female minister, who bought $37.5million property from a bank and deposited $20million cash.
However, the chairman did not mention if the suspect is a serving or former minister, neither did he state the name of the bank.
He expressed;
One of the problems we have in the country is the real estate. 90 to 100 percent of the resources are being laundered through the real estate. Of course, they are being regulated but they are not enough in terms of how they give their returns to the Special Control Unit.
Bawa expressed;
We investigated a matter in which a bank MD marketed a property to a minister and agreed to purchase it at $37.5million. The bank then sent a vehicle to her house to evacuate $20million from her house in the first instance.
The bank succeeded to put it in their system and paid the developer and then a lawyer set up a special purpose vehicle where the title documents were transferred into and of course, he is posing as the owner of the house.
Without the help of the banker, the minister couldn’t have imagined collecting $20million from anyone with opportunity from the real sector; she could not have thought of where to launder the proceeds of crime.
The EFCC chairman said the legal practitioner is currently claiming to be the owner of the house.
