By InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Monday said its management has handed over some unscrupulous staff to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for prosecution.

“The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would like to inform the general public of the chronology of events that led the management of the CBN to handover some unscrupulous staff to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for prosecution,’ a statement from the apex bank said.

The CBN said its Briquetting Panel comprising seniour bank staff from different branches noticed some anomalies at the Ibadan
during a routine internal audit of the bank’s cash destruction activities in September 2014.

According to the Central Bank, on observing this development, the panel immediately reported the matter to its management. “On further investigation ordered by the governor, it was discovered that a systematic scheme, which has been on for several years, was being run in which mutilated higher denomination notes originally meant for destruction were swapped with lower denomination currencies. This practice known as interleafing, basically labels a box with a higher value than its true content,” the statement added.

The Central Bank disclosed that as soon as it concluded its internal investigations beyond reasonable doubt that some wrongdoing had occurred, the affected members of staff who are middle-level officers were, depending on gravity of offence, either summarily dismissed or immediately placed on indefinite suspension on 21 October 2014, and all handed over to the EFCC for further investigation and prosecution.

The CBN further affirmed it has also conducted a nationwide audit of all 37 branches of the bank and found that this was an isolated scheme at Ibadan Branch. “The Bank will continue to collaborate with the EFCC to ensure that affected CBN staffs, as well as their accomplices in some commercial banks, are brought to justice,” the statement said.