EFCC Warns POS Operators Against Aiding Financial Crimes

By Aduragbemi Omiyale

Point of Sale (POS) operators in Nigeria have been warned by the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ola Olukoyede, against aiding fraudsters and money launderers in perpetrating financial crimes.

At a meeting with the Association of Mobile Money and Bank Agents in Nigeria (AMMBAN) on Wednesday in Abuja, the EFCC chief noted that POS operators have become complicit in abetting financial crimes, terrorist financing, ransom payments and money laundering.

Mr Olukoyede, speaking through his Chief of Staff, Mr Michael Nzekwe, informed the president of AMMBAN, Mr Oti Obioha, that the group lacks the structure and framework to curb financial crimes associated with the business the members do, making it possible for fraudsters to take advantage of their POS machines.

“We have realised that the issues of money laundering, terrorist financing, and even ransom payments are made mostly from POS machines.

“Your association needs to do more by coming up with a structure and a comprehensive framework that will have records of all your operators, so that during the course of investigation, we will be able to trace, monitor and have records that can aid us,” he said.

Speaking further, he queried the impact of the association on members, further asking if the association trains its members.

“Do you have records of the addresses of your members? I think you need to have more awareness and training for your members. There are even some POS operators who are actually fraudsters; they aid, conspire, give out information and abet fraudsters.

“Most times, in the course of investigation, when you find out that money was laundered through a POS operator, by the time you bring them in, they won’t even know the person who sent the money and who withdrew it-no records of the transactions-and no one is asking questions. You need to put your house in order and do more,” he said.

The EFCC boss urged the association leaders to task their members with having financial records of every transaction and having a record of their members across the nation, expressing the agency’s readiness to work with members of the association in training, awareness creation and information sharing.

On his part, Mr Obioha thanked the commission for the engagement, stating that members’ activities have a lot of financial implications which will involve close partnership with the EFCC.

“We deem it fit to present ourselves to help and work with the EFCC in preventing money laundering and other kinds of fraud.

“We are at the grassroots, and we observe that your institution is always inviting our members, so we wish we could have a partnership that can see to the training of our members on some of the issues like financial thresholds and the risks involved in some of our operations. So, we are here to help you curb the rate of fraud in the business we do.

“We want to collaborate in the areas of training, because most of our agents don’t know the rules of our operations. So, we need to partner in creating awareness,” he said.