The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has said asset recovery is vital in the fight against economic and financial crimes and a major disincentive against corrupt practices.
The Chairman of the Commission, Ola Olukoyede, stated this when members of the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Crimes paid an oversight visit to the EFCC headquarters on Tuesday in Abuja.
“If you understand the intricacies involved in financial crimes investigation and prosecution, you will discover that to recover one billion naira is war.
“So, I told my people that the moment we start investigation, we must also start asset tracing because asset recovery is pivotal in the anti-corruption fight.
“If you allow the corrupt or those that you are investigating to have access to the proceeds of their crime, they will fight you with it.
“So, one of the ways to weaken them is to deprive them of the proceeds of their crime. So, our modus operandi has changed tremendously.
“The moment we begin investigation, we begin asset tracing. That was what helped us to make our recoveries,” he said.
The EFCC boss noted that no fight against corruption, economic, and financial crimes could be effective if it did not energize the economy.
According to him, the Commission equally put up a command performance in the area of convictions, amassing about 3,500 convictions in the period spanning from Oct. 18, 2023, to Oct. 18, 2024.
Olukoyede noted that apart from the over 3,000 convictions, the Commission had several cases filed in court.
The Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Ginger Onwusibe, said that the legislators were impressed with EFCC’s budget implementation and outcomes.
He promised that the Committee and the National Assembly would rally behind the Commission with enhanced appropriation in the 2025 budget year in order to help it achieve even more.
According to him, the EFCC Chairman has shown boldness in fighting crime with no compromise and not looking at anybody’s face on the basis of ethnicity and political party affiliation.