EFCC Offers up to 5% Reward for Leads on Stolen Assets Abroad

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has offered whistleblowers between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent of recovered assets for credible information leading to the recovery of funds and properties allegedly taken abroad by corrupt Nigerians.

EFCC Chairman Ola Olukoyede disclosed this while delivering a lecture at the 43rd International Symposium on Economic Crime in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Olukoyede urged anyone with information on the location of Nigerian assets suspected to be proceeds of corruption anywhere in the world to approach the commission, saying successful whistleblowers would receive financial incentives after recovery.

He said the initiative was designed to encourage Nigerians and others with credible intelligence to assist the EFCC in tracing assets moved out of the country through illicit means.

The EFCC chairman said the reward could make credible whistleblowers millionaires, depending on the value of assets recovered from information they provide.

Olukoyede also disclosed that the commission had secured the forfeiture of cash and assets worth more than $500 million to the Federal Government within the first three years of his administration.

He attributed the recoveries to the professionalism of EFCC investigators, judicial support and access to credible intelligence.

The anti-graft agency chairman highlighted Nigeria's non-conviction-based asset forfeiture framework, which allows suspected proceeds of crime to be pursued without necessarily waiting for a criminal conviction.

He said the framework had enabled the EFCC to secure the forfeiture of assets including an aircraft, a university, estates and houses suspected to have been acquired with proceeds of crime.

Olukoyede cited the recovery of 752 housing units linked to former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele and the ongoing investigation into former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami.

He said investigators traced 57 properties to Malami and had so far secured the forfeiture of 48 of them.

The 43rd International Symposium on Economic Crime, held in Cambridge, brings together anti-corruption experts and practitioners from around the world.