The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued a stern warning about an increasing wave of fraudulent foreign currency transfer claims, where individuals and organizations falsely assert that their funds are being withheld by Nigerian banks or the apex bank.
In a statement released on Tuesday, CBN’s Acting Director of Corporate Communications, Hakama Ali, highlighted the growing concern over these deceptive practices, particularly involving fabricated SWIFT transfer documentation.
“The requests are usually supported with fake documents such as SWIFT MT103, SWIFT Ack copy, etc. 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,” the statement read.
The apex bank revealed that it has received numerous petitions from private entities, individuals, law firms, and government agencies claiming their international transfers were not credited to their Nigerian accounts.
These complainants often accuse either the beneficiary banks or the CBN of deliberately withholding their funds.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the CBN neither provides correspondent banking services for Nigerian banks in foreign payments nor maintains accounts for private business entities,” the bank emphasized. “Consequently, petitioners’ claims that the alleged expected inflows for onward credit into private accounts are trapped in the CBN are not only spurious but deceitful.”
The CBN clarified the proper procedure for handling uncredited funds, stating that senders should work directly with their banks to trace and recall transactions rather than escalating matters to the CBN or law enforcement agencies.
In a move to curb these fraudulent activities, the apex bank announced it would report any bank customers making illegitimate and unsubstantiated claims to law enforcement agencies for investigation and prosecution.
The statement further advised the public to exercise caution and scrutinize any SWIFT-related documents carefully, particularly those presented as evidence of international transfers.
The CBN emphasized that many of these documents are unverifiable and cannot be traced on the official SWIFT platform.
