Justice Rilwan Aikawa of the Federal High Court in Lagos yesterday ordered the total forfeiture of the N449.6million recently found in an abandoned Bureau De Change shop on Victoria Island, Lagos.
The forfeiture followed an application by the
counsel for the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC), I. Mohammed, on May 17
brought pursuant to Section 17 of the Advance
Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences
Act No. 14, 2006, Section 44 (2)K of the 1999
constitution.
The court had earlier on April 19 ordered the
temporary forfeiture of the money based on an
ex-parte application by the EFCC.
He directed the commission to advertise the
order in a newspaper so that the money's owner
might claim it.
However,an EFCC investigator, Moses Awolusi,
told the court that Shop LS64 at Legico
Shopping Plaza was not opened for two years.
He said the money was found on April 7 in
several Ghana must go sacks.
The EFCC, he said, recovered the cash following
intelligence about one Mohammed Tauheed.
Tauheed allegedly conspired with the shop's
owner to launder the money.
The EFCC said the suspect claimed he received
the money from a serving government official
whose name the commission refused to
disclose.
The commission said the official is serving in
the Muhammadu Buhari administration, but did
not name the person for what it termed
"security reasons".
EFCC's lawyer, Idris Mohammed, said yesterday
that the temporary forfeiture order was
advertised on May 11 and that Tauheed was
also served with the motion.
He urged the judge to order the final forfeiture
of the money since nobody claimed it.
Granting the application, Justice Aikawa held:
"This court ordered, among others, the
respondent (Tauheed) and any other interested
party to show cause, within 14 days, why the
interim forfeiture of N449,597,000 should not be
made final.
"As far as my record shows, neither the
respondent nor any other interested party has
filed any affidavit or any other process to show
cause why the interim order should not be made final.
"In the instant case, the respondent has,
additionally, not filed any process in response to the motion on notice.
"In the circumstances, I have no option, but to
grant the application as prayed.
"Accordingly, I hereby order that the sum of
N449,597,000 found in possession of the
respondent, which sum is reasonably suspected to be proceeds of an unlawful activity, be finally forfeited to the Federal Government."
-The Nation
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