By Ononye VC
The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Olayemi Michael “Yemi” Cardoso, has stated that security agencies are on the trail of a whopping $2.4 billion foreign exchange scam.
Mr. Cardoso made the remarks after the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting held in Abuja on Tuesday, March 26, 2024.
According to him, law enforcement agencies are investigating a cache of foreign exchange fraud worth about $2.4 billion.
Cardoso said: “In the cause of that forensic audit, we determined that a number of these transactions did not qualify.
“In some cases, you had some requests, which well you actually had some allocations that were made in millions of dollars, which were never requested for.
“You also had somewhere they had no Naira and they were also allocated, you know, huge sums, the foreign exchange.
“The list goes on and it was for that reason that we refused to validate those particular transactions.
“We refused to validate them because, you know… documentation was not satisfactory.
“In many cases they were outright illegal.
“The law enforcement agencies of course are now looking into those transactions that are as far as we’re concerned, not valid to be paid.”
