The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Tuesday warned Nigerians to beware of alleged foreign currency funds transfers by foreign entities backed with fake documents such as SWIFT MT103, SWIFT Ack copy, among others.
The statement by Hakama Sidi Ali (Mrs.), the apex bank’s Acting Director, Corporate Communications, noted emphatically that it “neither provides correspondent banking services for Nigerian banks in foreign payments nor maintains accounts for private business entities.”
Claims by such petitioners “that the alleged expected inflows for onward credit into the accounts of private business entities are trapped in the CBN is not only spurious but deceitful,” the statement stressed.
It urged the public to be careful with such unauthentic SWIFT messages and documents containing spurious claims of non-application of substantial foreign currency funds allegedly transferred into the beneficiary’s account.
The CBN, it warned, “will not hesitate to report any bank customer making unsubstantiated and illegitimate claims to law enforcement agencies for investigation and prosecution.”
The apex bank, the statement said, has been inundated with claims by private entities, individuals, law firms and government agencies of such transfers which are yet to be credited to their accounts with Nigerian banks.
In some instances, she recalled, “the claimants alleged that the funds were withheld by either the beneficiary bank in Nigeria or the CBN and requested the assistance of the Bank towards releasing the funds to them.
“It has become imperative to state that the SWIFT ack copy and SWIFT MT103 that these claimants usually attach as evidence of remittance to beneficiary banks in Nigeria are not reliable.”
Such SWIFT messages, the CBN stressed, “are always not traceable on the SWIFT platform, and the funds have not been received to enable their application to the beneficiary’s account.
Where a fund transfer beneficiary’s receiving bank claims non-receipt of funds
remitted by the foreign entity (sending customer), the CBN advised that “instead of escalating such issue to CBN or Law Enforcement Agencies, the standard practice is for the sending customer to contact the sending bank to send a tracer to trace where the fund is hanging and recall it.”
