EFCC freezes 300 accounts over illicit forex trading, says naira would have crashed in a week

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) says it has frozen over 300 accounts on suspicion of being linked to illicit forex trading which would have led to the crash of the naira within the next one week.

This was made known by the Chairman of EFCC, Ola Olukoyede, during an interactive session with editors and Abuja bureau chiefs of some media organizations, on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Abuja, where he noted that the accounts were frozen following a court order.

Olukoyede said the anti-graft agency has discovered another worse scheme other than the crypto trading platform, Binance, and its system.

He said the agency has frozen about 300 accounts to ensure the safety of the foreign exchange market.

The scheme popularly called the “P to P” peer-to-peer financial trading scheme has operated outside the official banking and financial corridors and there was a looming disaster that could further crash the Naira value that has continued to gain.

People in the system worse than Binance

The EFCC boss noted that there are people within the system who are carrying out activities worse than Binance using P2P platforms.

Olukoyede said, “We observe due process in whatever we do. Do you know that the Binance case we are currently handling now that has helped us to bring down the madness in the forex market?

"Suddenly, we discovered that there are people in the system who are even doing worse than Binance. They called them P2P and all of that. We noticed in the last two days ago the dollar has started appreciating. There was stability for 24 hours, then the naira was devalued again by N20 and N25. I don’t know whether you noticed that.

“It was due to the activities of some of these guys on P2P platforms like kucoin. Some of you must have seen them on social media. To shock you; just yesterday (Monday), I asked them to freeze over 300 accounts. In one of those accounts, we discovered the guy has traded the volume of over $15 billion in the last one year, nobody knew, outside the financial regulations."

Naira would have crashed in one week

Explaining further, Olukoyede said these 300 illicit accounts would have led to a crash of the naira in the next week if the EFCC hadn’t moved against them.

He added, "Our job is serious. We work 18 hours per day. We are not saying that Nigerians should praise us because that was what we signed for but where we deserve, we should be given. We are humans like Nigerians.

“Over 300 accounts in illicit forex trading that would have led to another crash in the next one week if we didn’t move yesterday. Some people just want to see this country go from bad to worse. We must find a way to work together. We got an order to freeze those accounts; Imagine what would have happened if we didn’t seize those accounts."