BANK FRAUD: MONEYGRAM SEEKS PARTNERSHIP WITH EFCC

MoneyGram International, a global money transfer company along with its agent banks in Nigeria has assured the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC of its continued commitment to fighting fraud and other economic crimes.

The assurance was given by Chris Botes, MoneyGram Regional Compliance Director during a visit with some bank executives to the Executive Chairman of the EFCC,Mrs Farida Waziri at her office in Abuja last weekend.

“MoneyGram and its partner banks in Nigeria will continue to pro-actively fight fraud in Nigeria and in specific, guard against being used by trans-national fraud syndicates”, he promised. Botes also promised that his organization would always utilize modern information technology which automatically screens and filters transactions to counter fraud and money laundering.

advertisement

Botes in addition promised that MoneyGram with its partner banks in Nigeria would proactively identify fraud even as they handle transactions and customers with due skill, due care and due diligence. He assured of his organization’s willingness to collaborate with EFCC, Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and other law enforcement agencies and regulators in implementing the anti- money laundering regime in the country.

Speaking earlier while receiving the visitors, Mrs. Waziri had called on MoneyGram and other money transfer companies to take into cognizance the fact that Nigeria was not yet developed technologically hence the need to put in place mechanism to check fraudulent activities involved in transferring money back and forth Nigeria.

She said that the issue of money laundering was critical and challenging to EFCC because economic and financial crimes were always perpetuated through money laundering and sometimes with the connivance of banks and money transfer companies. “There have been lots of complaints regarding frauds connected with money transfers and we will collaborate with you to end this menace. We intend to be proactive because fraudsters are themselves upgrading their knowledge and skills to beat law enforcement agencies.” she said.

Waziri bemoaned the fact that those who suffer most from these fraudulent activities are some old and illiterate persons whose relations have send them money from overseas and who normally do not know what are expected of them to claim these monies.

She suggested building capacity of operatives to know the intricacies involved in money transfer, bridging current intelligence gap between operators and enforcement agencies and improving the current internal mechanism among others, as measures to be put in place to check money laundering and money transfer frauds.