The Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu has disclosed that all the jewellery worth $40 million forfeited by the Former Minister of Petroleum will be auctioned at its actual worth.
Magu made this disclosure at the Stakeholders meeting against Internet fraudsters which held on Thursday at the Anti-graft agency Lagos office.
Ibrahim Magu revealed that the era of selling off forfeited properties at devalued prices, is gone. He said the commission will invite merchants and experts to value the properties in order to know their current value before auctioning them.
“We want to make sure that there’s transparency in the process. Like what we’re doing now in Port Harcourt. There are about 242 trailers and tankers that we are about auctioning. In fact, in the next two weeks, we will auction them. We will advertise, you will see it very clearly,” he said.
“The idea of selling recovered proceed of crime for peanuts is bad. This time around, we are not going to tolerate it.
“The era of auctioning forfeited properties at gross devalued prices is gone. We are going to do everything possible to know the real value of any forfeited property and we will invite professionals and merchants in the area to tell us the actual prices and the current worth and go back to the court to give reasonable price for every forfeited property before auctioning it.
“I want us to involve everybody…we have to involve the courts, the Federal Ministry of Justice, Department of Petroleum Resources and maybe the army, in whose premises these things are kept. We have to be very transparent.
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“Even the houses, there are auctioneers coming from outside the country who are internationally acclaimed and accredited auctioneers. For instance, the jewellery we recovered from Diezani, we need to bring in international auctioneers because these are things that are bought from abroad. We’ll get in touch with the manufacturers, with people who are in charge of these things.”