N8 billion CBN fraud; court refuses suspects bail

Paul Dada |

A Federal High Court sitting in Ibadan has refused the bail applications of staff of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN and other commercial banks who are standing trial over alleged fraud running into eight billions of Naira.

Justice Nathaniel Ayo-Emmanuel dismissed the application as he described the weight of the offences as mind-boggling and a capital offence against the nation’s economy.

He said he was not convinced that the suspects would not jump bail. He however ordered all the suspects to be remanded in Agodi prisons pending their trial.

The accused persons last week, through their counsel, applied for bail saying they would neither   jump bail nor influence the wheel of justice if granted bail. The court then adjourned till yesterday for ruling on the bail applications.

The CBN report which the anti-corruption agency, EFCC, acted upon states that “a systematic scheme, which has been on for several years, was being run in which mutilated higher denomination notes, originally meant for destruction, were swapped with lower denomination currencies. The practice, known as inter-leafing, basically labels a box with a higher value than its true content.”