UNODC seeks collaboration with EFCC to tackle financial crimes in West Africa

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has sought to strengthen its partnership with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to bolster the fight against corruption and financial crimes in West Africa..

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The country representative of UNODC, Cheikh Toure, said this on Thursday during a courtesy visit to the EFCC chairperson Ola Olukoyede at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja.

A statement shared by EFCC through its X handle on Thursday said Mr Toure explained that the partnership with Nigeria’s anti-graft agency would provide an opportunity for sharing knowledge among West African countries to tackle the challenges of cybercrime, especially with the complexity of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

“This is the only way we can bring a little bit of more safety and security to our children. The menaces are many and complex and today we have AI. Imagine AI in the hands of a cybercrime criminal doing movements on bitcoins?

“What will be our line of defence in investigating such cases? It will be more complex than those cases that you cracked in the past. It will require new sets of legal understanding to criminalise those cases,” the statement quoted Mr Toure as saying.

He also noted that the evolving nature of crimes requires international collaboration to investigate and seize ill-gotten assets, especially in countries with Nigerian investments.

“The second element is on international cooperation with countries where there is a lot of investment from Nigerians and where you have difficulties to seize some of the ill-gotten assets. I don’t want my tenure to be some sort of UN framework tenure. No. I am a technician. I’m the child of West Africa. I want an effective partnership.

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“So, basically what I am here to engage on is that if we work with you, I want that to be a partnership. There is a lot of expertise in Nigeria. The expertise can help us achieve our goals. So, it is only fair to go for strategic partnership,” he said.

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The EFCC’s chair, Mr Olukoyede, acknowledging the long-standing partnership between the two organisations, stressed the need to collaborate on issues regarding asset recovery.

“There is a need for us to collaborate more particularly on the relationship that we have with the United Nations in the area of asset recovery. We also want to pledge our support for your tenure. All the areas where you need to get our cooperation and our synergy, we are going to make them available to you.”