EFCC Probes Dangote Headquarters, BUA, 50 Others Over Forex Transactions Under Emefiele

Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) conducted a raid at the Headquarters of the Dangote Group as it intensified investigations into foreign exchange deals under the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele.

Founded by Nigerian billionaire businessman Aliko Dangote, Dangote Group is West Africa’s largest conglomerate and one of the biggest in Africa.

VerseNews gathered that the operatives of the anti-graft agency arrived at the group’s headquarters in Lagos on Thursday, December 4, 2023, demanding documents relating to foreign exchange allocations it received in the last ten years, per Premium Times.

The EFCC operatives scrutinised the documents provided by the group’s officials with a fine-tooth comb before carting some of them away.

It was gathered that the EFCC had written to 52 companies, instructing them to supply documents supporting the allocation and utilisation of foreign currencies to them in the last decade.

Dangote Group had, in November 2023, denied allegations of malpractices and money laundering of a purported staggering sum of $3.4 billion it received from the apex bank.

The EFFC visit on Thursday caught the company off guard, given that they were preparing to surrender boxes containing the sought documents to the anti-graft agency.

A source told the paper that “The Dangote people intimated to the EFCC that the documents were ready and that they were bringing them over. But the EFCC said its operatives would rather come to the company to collect the documents.”

The anti-graft agency is currently investigating alleged preferential forex allocations to individuals and organisations by the CBN during Emefiele’s regime.

In the past month, investigators have alleged that the CBN favoured and enriched some individuals and companies through opaque allocation of foreign exchange to them.

In December 2023, a forensic audit of the CBN activities under Emefiele uncovered 593 bank accounts domiciled in the United States, the United Kingdom and China in which Nigerian funds were deposited without authorisation from the board and investment committee of the apex bank.

The special investigator, Jim Obazee, revealed how the sacked CBN governor stashed the sum of £543.4 million in fixed deposit accounts, adding that the former apex bank chief manipulated the naira exchange rate and committed fraud in the execution of the e-Naira project.