Notable businessmen and BDC operators are reported to be the financiers of Boko Haram, a terrorist group that has wrecked havoc on the country since over a decade.
The businessmen were arrested in an operation being coordinated by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), and in collaboration with the Department of State Services (DSS), Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The newspaper reported that an initial list of 957 suspects comprising bureau de change (BDC) operators, gold miners and sellers, and other businessmen is being acted upon in a sting operation.
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A source, however, said about 400 persons have been arrested in Kano, Borno, Abuja, Lagos, Sokoto, Adamawa, Kaduna and Zamfara.
Some of the BDC operators arrested include Baba Usaini, Abubakar Yellow (Amfani), Yusuf Ali Yusuf (Babangida), Ibrahim Shani, Auwal Fagge, and Muhammad Lawan Sani, a gold miner.
Those arrested are reportedly being kept in military and DSS facilities in Abuja and other places. This is an indictment on Northern elites for successfully allowing thousands of their own people to die because of greed. It is not clear whether or not people in the corridors of power serving under the present administration and in the past are also complicit. There are a thousand and one reason to believe that the arrested BDC operators are scape goats abd the real financiers may just be lurking around Aso Rock with government portfolio. Anything is possible.
“Because this is economic warfare against the insurgents and other militant groups, the president, when approving the operation directed that the NFIU take the lead as the country’s financial intelligence powerhouse,” Daily Trust quoted a source to have said.
The source added that “with the presidential approval last year, a task team was composed of personally selected senior officers who were deployed under the DIA to carry out the special assignment”.
“The main person coordinating the funding ring for Boko Haram is in our custody, he and his closest ally in the business,” he said.
Another source was quoted to have said about 19 BDCs owned by persons with “direct connection with Boko Haram” were uncovered, while over N300 billion was found to have been used in funding terrorism.
Apart from one person in Borno and another in Zaria, Kaduna state, the source said over N50 billion were traced in funding to the armed groups.
“A number of those arrested have divulged vital information including operational details of bandits and Boko Haram insurgents. But they are being kept to aid further arrests,” the source was quoted to have said.
Source: Daily Trust
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