Pension Scam: EFCC freezes 33 bank accounts belonging to 2 military officers

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said it has frozen about 33 bank accounts containing N314 million suspected to have been diverted by two senior military officers from the Military Pension Fund, National Daily has gathered.

Acting Chairman of the EFCC disclosed this in a letter addressed to the Chief of Defence Staff recently.

Magu in the letter said two of the suspects, Wing Commander Ishaka Yakubu; and an Assistant Director, Computer, with the MPB, Lieutenant Commander Akinbamidele Odunsi, colluded with two employees of the United Bank for Africa Plc to divert the said funds from the Military Pension Board into the 33 accounts opened by the suspects in the Bank.

The acting EFCC Chairman said in his letter with reference number EFCC/EC/CDS/66/16 that the total sum of N339, 374,478.58 was withdrawn from the MPB account across the counter or transferred to other accounts in the bank.

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Magu in the letter said “Investigation discovered that fraudulent accounts were opened by the Business Manager, Mrs. Violet Ofoegbunam, and relationship manager, Mrs Kolade Aderemi Abidemi, thereby compromising the ‘Know Your Customer’ requirements with the connivance of the two military officers.

“Thirty-three accounts were identified to have fraudulently received payments to the tune of N339, 374,478.58 from Military Pensions Board between April and June 2016.”

He noted that all the 33 accounts into which the money was diverted had been frozen.

He said out of the stolen N339m, the sum of N314m had been recovered and kept in the EFCC Recovery Account.