NDLEA: ATM Cards Smuggling Latest Money Laundering Technique,

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has warned travelers smuggling multiple Automated Teller Machine cards to desist from the act or face the full wrath of the law.
In a statement on Saturday by its spokesman, Ofoyeju Mitchell, the NDLEA described as money laundering, an arrangement of using multiple debit cards to withdraw money from multiple bank accounts to circumvent the minimum amount of daily withdrawal.
Last April, the Central Bank of Nigeria‎ reviewed the foreign exchange spending, reducing the daily cash withdrawal limit for ATM users from US$2,500 to US$300.


‎”That criminal plan will not work because we shall continue to seize such cards and arrest the perpetrators at all entry and exit points”, NDLEA chairman, Ahmadu Giade, vowed.
Mr. Giade spoke following the arrest of two travelers, at the weekend,‎ with 89 debit cards at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos.
The suspects – Nweke Pauline Osita, 40, and Egesiokwu Frank Chukwudi, 41, were arrested with ATM cards of different banks.
“We arrested Nweke Pauline Osita with 65 debit cards and Egesiokwu Frank Chukwudi with twenty-four (24) debit cards during screening of passengers on an Ethiopian airline flight to China”, the statement quoted Mr. Giade as saying.

Giade said that the suspects conspired with others to evade scrutiny from government agencies by opening various bank accounts with the aim of using the debit cards for daily withdrawals abroad.
The director of Assets and Financial Investigation of the agency, Mrs. Victoria Egbase, said that the statements of the suspects had been taken under caution and that preliminary investigation points to the fact that the various bank accounts were opened to facilitate withdrawal of money outside the country.
Osita, an Onitsha based trader, who was caught with 65 debit cards, said that the cards belonged to his friends and business partners.

“I am a trader. I sell men clothes at Onitsha. I was on my way to China to buy goods when NDLEA officers arrested me with 65 debit cards. The cards belong to my friends, relatives and business partners”, the suspect, who hails from Enugu State and married with two children, said in his confession statement to the NDLEA.
The second suspect, Chukwudi, who has a boutique at Aba, Abia State was found in possession of 24 debit cards.

Following the nature of the crime, the NDLEA chairman has directed that the suspects be transferred to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for further Investigation.
The duo’s arrest came less than a week after officials of the NDLEA had arrested a trader, Udeh Onuora Pascal, who was travelling to China with 108 debit cards.

“The arrests is an indication that smuggling of debit cards abroad is one of the latest money laundering techniques employed to evade financial regulations”, the NDLEA said.