EFCC ALERT!

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) wish to notify members of the public about the activities of a syndicate of fraudsters that have been circulating fake EFCC invitation letters to some heads of agencies of government purporting that the letters emanated from the Commission in respect of petitions against them.

One such letter sent to the National Engineering Design and Development Institute in Anambra State and entitled, Investigation Activities: Letter of investigation reads thus:

“Acting on the petition against you and after preliminary investigation conducted by our operatives, and the need to invite you to the Commission’s Abuja office for a chat becomes imperative (sic)

“Your are advice(sic) to call the Principal Detective Superintendent(PDS) Adeniyi in charge of this number for information, time and date of your appointment immediately you receive this letter. Failure to comply, the commission will assume you are already on the run while a manhunt will commence out rightly” (sic).

Another letter with exactly the same wording was also sent to the Chief Medical Director of a Teaching Hospital in Delta state only that the name of the supposed officer he was asked to contact and the telephone number were changed.

The similarity between these letters and many others that have come to the attention of the Commission clearly establish that this is the handiwork of a particular syndicate out to defraud unsuspecting chief executives of government agencies.

Their targets are heads of government agencies and ministries in obscure locations, far removed from the cities where the EFCC offices are located.  

The Commission wishes to advise members of the public to discountenance any invitation letter purportedly emanating from the EFCC that contains a personal telephone number of an individual. No authentic EFCC invitation letters bears the telephone number of an operative.

Also, members of the public should ignore any letter purportedly from the Commission that requires them to call anybody to discuss time and date of an appointment. An authentic EFCC letter of invitation would unambiguously state the date and time an invitee is expected to report and the full name of the officer he is to report to.

In addition, interrogations are only conducted in EFCC offices. Addresses of all EFCC offices are available on the Commission’s website (www.efccnigeria.org).

It is equally important that members of the public take cognizance of the eagle in the logo of the Commission. What we have is a live picture of an eagle and not an artist impression as contained in the fake letter heads of the fraudster. Moreover, the ill-tempered and threatening language of the scammers should be sufficient alert any one as no responsible agency of government would couch official correspond in such language.

Finally, members of the public may take the extra steps of verifying the authenticity of any invitation letters purportedly from the EFCC by contacting the Director, Internal Affairs Department at Block C, EFCC headquarters, 5 Fomela Street, off Adetokunbo Ademola crescent, Wuse 2, Abuja, or call any of these numbers: 097831798, 097831799, 08036076316, 08191534236 and 09-4604628 or send an email to: dia@efccnigeria.org. They could as well send a message through the EFCC facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Official-EFCC/509762239046271.

Wilson Uwujaren

Ag. Head, Media & Publicity

23^rd October, 2013