The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Monday, June 11, 2018, presented its first witness in the on-going trail of Nanle Miracle Dariye, son of former Plateau State Governor, Joshua Dariye, on a 6-count charge of money laundering to the tune of N1.5billion before Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
The suit filed with charge no. FHC/ABJ/CR/19/2018 has Dariye as first defendant . The second defendant is Apartment le Paradis, an hotel where he was director.
Counsel to the EFCC, George Adebola presented his first witness, PW1 Emem Kongkor who introduced herself as an operative of the anti-graft agency and Team Leader “Team A” of the Inspection and Enforcement Unit of the Special Control Unit Against Money Laundering, SCUML.
“SCUML has the mandate to register, monitor and regulate the activities of designated non-financial institutions, DNFIs. Section 25 of the Money Laundering Act 2011 (as amended) defines DNFIs to include mechanized farming, hotels, casinos, supermarkets and other small scale businesses”
According to Kongkor, “Section 10 of the Money Laundering Act 2011(as amended) mandates all DNFIs to report in writing every single lodgments or transfer that exceeds the threshold of N5million or its equivalent for individual accounts and N 10million or its equivalent for corporate accounts within seven days”.
The witness narrated how sometime in 2017, a case of non-compliance with the Money Laundering Act 2011 (as amended) was referred to Team “A” for investigation. Following the investigation,” the team liaised with the Asset Management Co-operation of Nigeria, AMCON desk of EFCC and investigations revealed that Dariye had a case with the AMCON team of EFCC as well.