EFCC Chairman Ola Olukoyede has said that some corrupt politicians and fraudsters are now using cryptocurrencies to hide stolen money and avoid getting caught. He spoke about this issue on July 10 during the Africa Anti-Corruption Day event in Abuja. According to him, fraud involving digital money and fake investment platforms is becoming a major concern and might soon become more common than the traditional way of laundering money.
He was represented at the event by Bawa Usman Kaltungo, the Acting Zonal Director of the EFCC in Kaduna. He said Africa is losing billions of dollars every year to illegal money activities. While money laundering is still the biggest problem, digital currency fraud is growing fast and becoming a new way for criminals to hide stolen funds.
“Another rising criminal engagement that has the potential to outpace even money laundering is virtual assets and investment scams,” Olukoyede said
Olukoyede explained that cryptocurrencies and other digital tokens are not illegal by themselves. However, the speed at which technology is growing has given criminals new tools to move and hide stolen money in smart ways.
“Fraudulent politicians are already perfecting schemes and hiding their loot in cryptocurrencies to beat the investigative dragnets of anti-corruption agencies. Stolen funds and unexplained wealth are being warehoused in wallets, and payments for services are being routed through this channel.”
He also linked the abuse of digital assets to the rise of shady online investment platforms that trick people with promises of high returns.
“Virtual assets fraud and investment scam are not hard nuts to crack. Our proactive, broad-based training and intelligence are already exposing these schemes. We have enormous proofs of operational successes, especially our breakthrough in the investigation and prosecution of the infamous CBEX scam.”he said
He raised concern about how Ponzi schemes and fake investments are spreading across Africa. These scams take advantage of people who are desperate to make money and end up making their financial situation worse. Olukoyede said any form of cheating investors should be treated as a serious crime.
“Many victims of CBEX might have avoided losses if they had done proper checks. Investors hardly file suspicious transaction reports to the EFCC until after they are defrauded,” he said. “No investment scam can succeed without the negligence of investors.”he said
