EFCC Chairman, Ola Olukoyede, disclosed this on Monday while speaking with media executives and journalists in Abuja. He said the commission’s Fraud Risk Assessment and Control Department detected the suspicious transactions and temporarily froze the account for 72 hours to determine the destination and purpose of the funds.

Olukoyede did not identify the local government, company or state involved.

The EFCC chairman defended the commission’s intervention, saying law enforcement agencies should focus not only on recovering stolen funds but also on preventing suspicious transactions from being completed.

He explained that the commission had observed cases where public officials allegedly use students and young people as fronts to move illicit funds through cryptocurrency wallets.

According to Olukoyede, many of the officials currently under investigation have few traceable physical assets because they allegedly transfer funds into crypto wallets, sometimes moving the money abroad and using it to purchase properties and luxury items.

He added that the EFCC now has the capacity to trace cryptocurrency wallets, particularly those linked to virtual asset platforms registered in Nigeria. He said about 40 virtual asset platforms have been licensed under strengthened regulatory measures.

Olukoyede also disclosed that the commission had recovered virtual assets connected to the CBEX fraud. He said the Federal Government had approved the creation of a national confiscation wallet to ensure recovered digital assets are properly managed and accounted for.

The EFCC boss further revealed that the commission’s anti-corruption efforts contributed about N288.1bn in federal and state tax recoveries during the period under review.

He also disclosed that more than 40 EFCC personnel had been dismissed over alleged corruption and financial misconduct in the past two and a half to three years, with some already facing prosecution.