INTERPOL unveils strategies to trace politicians’ looted funds

The International Police Organisation (INTERPOL) has unveiled a new module codenamed Silver Notices to frontally tackle the scourge of money laundering and illicit financial flows across the world, especially Africa.

The Interpol Vice President for Africa, Garba Umar, said this yesterday, while declaring open a four-day training for Nigerian law enforcement agencies at the EFCC Academy, Abuja.

According to Umar, Interpol was proposing a silver notice to help trace and recover stolen funds from corrupt politicians and criminals.

Umar stated that with the initiative, politicians who stole money and criminals would have no way to hide their proceeds.

Umar said: “We are bringing what we call silver notice. The silver notice will trace wherever the funds are, the money that was stolen by corrupt leaders, corrupt politicians, and corrupt individuals, criminals.

“For the first time in the history of the Interpol, we are now introducing the silver notices. The EFCC and the NFIU will trace where this money is, not only tracing the money, but repatriating the money through our MLAT, our natural legal, diplomatic channels, and so on. This is what we are doing, through police-to-police international cooperation. If you think you have stolen money and you want to go and hide it, no.”

Umar urged law enforcement agencies to intensify their efforts against financial crime, adding that law enforcement agencies that have not yet been integrated into the I-247 facility should proceed to do so.

The Director of Interpol Financial Crime Anti-Corruption Center, Isaac Ogini, said the silver notice would kick off in January 2025.

Ogini said, “Silver notice will be targeting asset recovery, tracing and recovering of assets. As nature will have it, we will be starting the pilot in January next year. And I want to specifically thank the Nigerian government. Specifically, the director, and CEO, of NFIU.”

Also speaking, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Chairman, Ola Olukoyede, who was represented by the Director of Fraud Risk Assessment and Control Department of the EFCC, Francis Usai, said the agency was restrategising its operations to effectively tackle financial crimes.

He said, “The EFCC is restrategising its operations with a focus on prevention, knowing that it is easier and cheaper to prevent corruption from happening than investigating and prosecuting corruption.”