The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, has revealed how a female minister laundered $37.5m through property deal. Speaking while featuring on Channels Television current affairs programme, “Sunrise Daily”, on Tuesday, to mark his 100 days in office, Bawa said that about 90 to 100 per cent of resources are being laundered through the real estate sector.
He said the commission investigated a female minister, who according to him, bought $37.5m property from a bank and deposited $20m cash. Bawa, did not however disclose the identity of the minister.
He said one of the problems of corruption in the country is the real estate sector.
He said, “90 to 100 per cent of the resources are being laundered through the real estate.
“Of course, they are being regulated but they are not enough in terms of how they give their returns to the Special Control Unit”.
The EFCC Chairman said the commission “investigated a matter in which a bank MD marketed a property to a minister and agreed to purchase it at $37.5m.
“The bank then sent a vehicle to her house to evacuate $20m from her house in the first instance.
“The bank succeeded to put it in their system and paid the developer and then a lawyer set up a special purpose vehicle where the title documents were transferred into and of course, he is posing as the owner of the house.
“Without the help of the banker, the minister couldn’t have imagined collecting $20m from anyone with opportunity from the real sector; she could not have thought of where to launder the proceeds of crime.”