EFCC Offers Rewards For Tips On Stolen Assets

Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has reaffirmed its policy of paying whistleblowers between 2.5% and 5% of recovered assets or funds when their information leads to the successful recovery of proceeds of corruption taken abroad.

EFCC Chairman Ola Olukoyede disclosed this at the 43rd International Symposium on Economic Crime in Cambridge, urging people with credible information about stolen Nigerian assets to come forward.

Olukoyede said the incentive was designed to strengthen the commission’s access to intelligence needed to trace and recover illicitly acquired assets.

“If any one of you is privy to where Nigerian assets are stolen or taken to anywhere in the world, we have an incentive for you; between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent, it’s going to go back to you upon recovery,” he said.

He also highlighted Nigeria’s non-conviction-based asset forfeiture framework, which allows authorities to pursue suspected proceeds of crime without waiting for a criminal conviction.

Olukoyede cited the forfeiture of an aircraft, university, estates and houses, as well as 752 housing units linked to former Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele.

The whistleblower policy was introduced in December 2016 under former President Muhammadu Buhari to encourage the recovery of looted public funds and assets.

SOURCE: TRTAfrika