CBN Cautions Public On Fake Currency transfer Claims
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said it has received several complaints by private entities, individuals, law firms and government agencies that foreign currency funds allegedly transferred
to them by foreign entities have yet to be credited to their accounts with Nigerian banks.
The apex bank in statement by the Acting Director of Corporate communications Hakama Sidi Ali (Mrs.) said claimants alleged that the funds were withheld by either the beneficiary bank in Nigeria or the CBN and requested the assistance of the Bank towards releasing the funds to
them.
CBN further said the requests are usually supported with fake documents such as SWIFT MT103, SWIFT
Ack copy, etc.
“It has become imperative to state that the SWIFT ack copy and SWIFT MT103 that these claimants usually attach as evidence of remittance to beneficiary banks in Nigeria are not reliable”.
The SWIFT messages are always not traceable on the SWIFT platform, and the funds have not
-receipt of funds remitted by the foreign entity (sending customer), instead of escalating such issue to CBN or Law
Enforcement Agencies, the standard practice is for the sending customer to contact the sending bank to send a tracer to trace where the fund is hanging and recall it.
“For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state emphatically that the CBN neither provides correspondent banking services for Nigerian banks in foreign payments nor maintains accounts
for private business entities”.
“Consequently, petitioners’ claim that the alleged expected inflows
for onward credit into the accounts of private business entities are trapped in the CBN is not only spurious but deceitful”.
CBN advises the general public to be careful with such unauthentic SWIFT messages and documents containing spurious claims of non-application of substantial foreign currency
not hesitate to report any bank customer making unsubstantiated and illegitimate claims to law enforcement agencies for investigation and prosecution.
