Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) recently claimed to have identified individuals and organizations that have accelerated the depreciation of the country’s currency through the rapid accumulation of U.S. dollars, reports EFCC Chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa, said the commission is currently going after foreign currency speculators in Kano, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Enugu, and Calabar.
EFCC’s Continued Offensive Against Foreign Exchange Speculators
According to Abdulrasheed Bawa, chairman of the Nigerian EFCC, the anti-narcotics group has identified the persons and organizations responsible for the recent plunge in the national currency, the naira, by buying up US dollars. Bawa’s claim follows earlier reportsthat the EFCC raided black market forex dealers operating in the Wuse Zone 4 area of Abuja
According to areportin the Daily Post, the EFCC subsequently received information linking as yet unnamed individuals and organizations to the syndicate hoarding foreign currency. Bawa revealed that while the anti-thief syndicate’s raids were initially limited to the Abuja area, similar offensives against speculators in Kano, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Enugu, and Calabar were underway.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has blamed foreign currency speculators in Nigeria for causing the sharp drop in the parallel market exchange rate of the local currency against the US dollar. As recently reported by Bitcoin.com News, the Nigerian currency plunged to an all-time low exchange rate of N710 per dollar.
However, after the intervention of the EFCC, the naira has rebounded and is trading at around N650 per dollar as of this writing.
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