An employee of the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting
Company, Osakpolo Igbinosa, has been arrested by the Lagos State Police Command
for allegedly being in possession of fake N900, 000.
The father of three said the fake
money was among those that were yet to reach the final stage of printing by the
NSPMC.
The suspect, a material security
officer, said he had been perpetrating the criminal act since 2010 until he was
recently arrested by the police in Ikorodu.
The Edo State indigene said he had
gone to a bureau de change operator to convert the counterfeit money to dollars
when one of the operators, Abdulrahman Abdullahi, raised the alarm and alerted
the police.
“The notes are not fake per se, but
the difference is that, they have not reached final state of production and so
there are no serial numbers on them. I did not print them contrary to what I am
being accused of. The notes are genuine ones and were printed by the company
but I stole them because I needed to offset some debt,” he said.
The spokesperson for the state police
command, Ngozi Braide, said the suspect was arrested on September 19, 2012.
She said, “One Abdulraham Abdullahi
of Benson Plaza Ikorodu alerted policemen on Shagamu Road that the suspect,
with staff number MSC. /4503 transacted a business of exchange of N900, 000 for
$3,000. During the transaction, the said N900, 000 was discovered to be fake
because the notes did not have security and minting numbers.
“The suspect was promptly arrested by
the police and during interrogation, he confessed being a security man attached
to the NSPMC and that he stole money.
“He further stated that he had been
stealing the counterfeit money since 2010 and bought a Nissan Pathfinder with
number plate KRD 480AE from the illegal business. He even attempted to bribe
the police with N300, 000 when they came to arrest him.”
Braide said the bribe money was also
being held as an exhibit and that the suspect would soon be charged to court.
Credit: Punch
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