The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has raised the alarm over the widespread occurrence of money laundering within Nigeria’s real estate sector, citing estate developers as key facilitators due to inadequate customer vetting.

According to a press release on EFCC social media accounts on Wednesday, its chairman, Ola Olukoyede, tasked real estate developers with the need to do background checks on real estate investors to ascertain the legitimacy of their sources of income.

Olukoyede gave the admonition while delivering a speech titled “Tackling Illegal Property Sales, Fake Developers, and Unlicensed Agents,” at an event in Abuja on Wednesday.

He said, “By virtue of empirical things we have gathered and some of the things we have seen, statistics and reports, we discoveres that the issue of money laundering is very rampant among real estate developers and stakeholders in the sector.”

He urged developers to prioritise KYC checks, emphasising, “As a developer, the first thing that must come to your mind is that you have to do KYC.

“Even if the law has not made it mandatory for you to do it, in the interest of your business and for the survival of your business, do it.”

He warned that failure to comply could lead to severe consequences, adding, “If somebody steals money and uses it to buy property from you and we trace that money to you, we will recover it from you, because you can’t sit on the proceeds of crime.”

Olukoyede stressed the importance of regulatory compliance, noting that, “The difference between our country and developed countries where things work is just compliance to rules. That’s what we are lacking here.”

He criticised the tendency of some developers to operate without understanding the governing regulations and urged them to always play by the rules if they want their business to succeed.

While issuing stern warnings, Olukoyede also extended support to legitimate businesses.

He said, “Our job is to make you succeed. That’s my work, because when you succeed, you employ more people, and more Nigerians will get jobs to sustain themselves, and the propensity for them to commit financial crime will be reduced.”

He encouraged developers to collaborate with the EFCC and assured them of utmost support.

“You have access to the EFCC, our doors are open. Rest assured that we are not looking for your business to go under,” Olukoyede said.