Court orders final forfeiture of $7m abandoned in Lagos bank

The Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the final forfeiture of $7 million in cash abandoned at a commercial bank branch located at 114 Adeola Odeku Street, Victoria Island, Lagos.

The ruling, delivered by Justice Emeka Nwite on Monday, followed an application filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and argued by Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Rotimi Oyedepo (SAN).

Oyedepo reminded the court that an interim forfeiture order had earlier been granted on August 27, with a directive for the notice to be published in a national daily to allow interested parties to come forward.

He said the EFCC complied with the order on September 1, adding that since then, no one had come forward to claim the money, which informed the filing of the application for the final forfeiture.

Oyedepo prayed the court to grant the prayer as contained in the application for final forfeiture.

A lawyer, who announced his appearance for an interested party, Darlington Ozurumba, told the court that he was not objecting to the court granting the application.

When the case last came up on September 12, a lawyer, Gbenga Femi Akande, who said he was appearing for an unnamed interested party, promised to file a count-affidavit yesterday to oppose the application for the final forfeiture.

But he was absent from yesterday’s proceedings and failed to file the document he promised to file.

Ruling, Justice Nwite said since the application was not opposed by anyone, there was no reason for the court to reject it.

The judge granted it and ordered that the funds be permanently forfeited to the Federal Government.

In a supporting affidavit attached to the application, the EFCC gave details of how its investigators, acting on credible intelligence, discovered the money and recovered it in full.

The deponent, an operative of the commission, said the investigation stated that funds were conveyed to the bank under suspicious circumstances between March 25 and 26.

The operative, who said he was part of the team that covered the case, explained that the funds were handed over to the Cash Officer of the bank, Agba Emmanuel Fortune, in tranches.

The EFCC operative added: “The said sum was not credited to any known customer’s account of the bank, but rather surreptitiously kept in the bank’s vault.

“Agba Emmanuel Fortune was interviewed by my team, wherein he confessed that Sulieman Sani and Idris Ahmed Olatunji walked into the bank with the funds totalling $7,000,000.00 in raw cash and handed the same to him.

“Suleiman Sani was found and discovered through the platform of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to be Fagge Sani Sanusi.

“Fagge Sani Sanusi was interviewed by my team, and his extrajudicial statement was voluntarily obtained.

“Agba Emmanuel Fortune informed my team that it was Ifeoma Delphine Nwogbo, the Relationship Officer of the bank, who had the information as to the ownership of the funds.

“My team interviewed and voluntarily obtained the extrajudicial statement of Agba Emmanuel Fortune.

“My team equally interviewed and obtained a voluntary extrajudicial statement of Ifeoma Delphine Nwogbo, the Relationship Officer of the bank.

“According to Ifeoma Delphine Nwogbo, the funds were brought to the bank for and on behalf of the managing director of a company.

“My team interviewed the managing director of the company in respect of the sum of $7,000,000.00, who insisted that she did not take any $7,000,000.00 to the bank.

“My team was equally informed by the management director of the company that she took a loan of $7,000,000.00 from the bank, which she is yet to pay back to the bank.

“The bank did not file a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) in respect of this transaction.

“The funds sought to be forfeited are reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activity, as they did not represent known, provable, and legitimate income of either the company, the couriers, or three officials of the bank.

“The entire $7,000,000.00 sought to be forfeited has been recovered by my team from the bank in raw cash and taken to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for safekeeping.

“The funds sought to be forfeited are also reasonably suspected to have been abandoned, as nobody came forward to claim the funds from the bank or the commission that recovered the same.”