19 September 2002
Lagos — President: Damage to the country incalculable
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said that banks would henceforth be penalised for abetting advance free fraud, otherwise known as 419, a foremost financial crime in Nigeria.
President Olusegun Oba-sanjo, however, said advance fee fraud is doing incalculable damage to the country.
Advance fee fraud is a crime whereby someone uses deceit to acquire assets from another person.
The CBN deputy governor, Dr. Samsudeen Usman said on Tuesday at a conference on 419 in New York that the Central Bank has intensified enforcement of relevant laws requiring banks to prevent the use of their facility to perpetrate 419 or the laundering of money.
If a bank was found to have been careless in allowing a criminal to defraud another person, it would be made to refund the money involved, he explained.
He said the Central Bank had already made a commercial bank to refund $400,000 that an American was defrauded of.
He said the information provided by the American victim was so detailed the Central Bank was able to trace the transaction to the bank involved.
Although the Central Bank wanted to return the money to the victim, Usman said the American embassy asked for a deferment until an investigation was carried out on their part.
The lady victim in this case was present at the conference.
Usman also said the Central Bank has established a task force on economic crime and extended its surveillance of 419 activities to other financial institutions, such as bureau de change, mortgage institutions and others.
He said the conference on economic crimes, begun two years ago by the Central Bank, has been institutionalised and will now hold every year as part of efforts to mobilise Nigerians to fight the crime.
Speaking at the conference, President Olusegun Obasanjo said advance fee fraud "is doing incalculable damage" to the country.
Obasanjo said the phenomenon was negating the government's quest for foreign investment.
He said that Nigeria's foreign missions are bombarded everyday with scores of scam letters from persons who receive them, adding that because of the trend, every document coming from Nigeria is regarded as suspect, particularly by intending investors.
"What is even more worrisome is the widespread perception within the international community, especially in the U.S., that our government is not doing enough to apprehend the culprits," he said.
He noted that given such perception, it was apparent that even the advertorials often used by the government to warn potential victims against the scam have failed both to achieve the desired result and to convince the international community of government's genuine efforts to combat the problem.
But he also pointed to government's recent response to the problem, including the establishment of a committee to investigate and prosecute offenders.
The President expressed government's desire to have cooperation arrangement with American law enforcement officials to crack down on the advance fee fraudsters.
Such cooperation with the UK has resulted in busting the syndicates that exist in Europe and Africa, he said.
Obasanjo expressed hope that the conference would lead to the adoption of a new strategy of cooperation between
Nigeria and the U.S. in the pursuit and apprehension of culprits and confiscation of their ill-gotten gains.
Nigeria's ambassador to the U.S., Prof. Jibril Aminu said the involvement of a few unpatriotic and irresponsible Nigerians in the scams has stigmatised the country.
"The crooks do this alone and together with selfish and equally greedy foreigners who have more ambition than sense and more than the industriousness to afford a comfortable and honest existence," he said.
The ambassador, who chaired the meeting, said it marked the beginning of a long overdue intensification of the war on 419, urging the President to deploy enough human and material resources to sustain it.
With the government having already sent a bill on the crime to the National Assembly, Aminu called on the law makers to accelerate passage of the bill and appealed to the judiciary to deal firmly with the perpetrators of the crime.
He said Nigerian missions in the U.S. will continue to be helpful to advise those who receive solicitation letters from the perpetrators of the scam.
Other speakers at the conference expressed the need for more cooperation between Nigeria and U.S. agencies in dealing with the problem that has now assumed greater threat because of the use of the Internet.
Mr. Jonathan Rusch, an official of the U.S. Department of Justice in charge of fraud prevention said more cooperation was needed between Nigerians and Americans in the effort to stem a crime that has done so much damage to Nigeria's image.
"We welcome the opportunity to cooperate with Nigeria to deal with the crime," he said.
Rusch said a study has shown that e-mails sent out by 419 scammers from Nigeria increased by 900 per cent from 2000 to 2001 alone.
The U.S., he said, has developed tools to investigate and prosecute the crime, including the use of statutes dealing with mail, wire, fax and phone fraud.
The U.S. Secret Service has also established an office in Lagos to facilitate the sharing of information and trailing of particular cases, he said.
In dealing with the crime, the U.S. Justice Department has used undercover operations, using targeted businesses to identify as many of those involved in the crime as possible, he said.
An official of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations in charge of economic crimes, Mr. Gary Dagan said the scammers have given Nigeria a bad reputation.
He said most of the letters targeting victims have a similar format, usually insisting on confidentiality and preying on peoples sense of greed or sympathy.
When the scam succeeds, he said, the chances of recovering the funds are usually almost nil.
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