Short & Sharp: Money laundering

The recent statements by the Swiss government that Swiss banks have no more of Nigeria’s stolen monies in their vaults is a sort of milestone in the long saga of hide and seek, denials and outright lies by banks in USA and EU including Switzerland and the UK.

This is perhaps the first frank admission that, yes, they have been in the habit of storing stolen monies by Nigeria’s government officials, and lying about it. But then, they say they will not admit to holding anymore of our stolen monies unless we first tell them the name of the person who stole the money, where he/she stole it, how much was deposited in which banks, on what dates, in what account numbers, etc. etc.

This is the disingenuous trickery (wayo) known as “the best defence is offence”—hardly an improvement over the traditional Swiss bank stonewalling of defiant silence and non-compliance.

Monies stolen from Nigeria’s public (as well as private) treasury usually involves three parties: the thief/high public official and his co-conspirators (permanent secretaries, directors of finance, accountants, auditors); Nigerian bank officials (MDs, executive directors, senior managers) who “launder” the money (provide it documentation and legal cover and transmit it abroad); and the receiving foreign banks with their senior officials.

The few occasions when bits of these transactions are exposed and become an issue in the public media are merely the tip of the iceberg.

So much for preachments regarding “corruption”.