The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, has described the real estate sector as one with grand scale corruption in the country.
The EFCC boss added that about 90 to 100 percent of resources are being laundered through the sector.
Bawa stated this while featuring on Sunrise Daily, a current affairs programme, on Channels Television on Tuesday.
According to him, the commission investigated a female minister, whom he said bought $37.5 million (about N18,750,000,000) property from a bank and deposited $20 million cash.
Bawa did not however disclose the identity of the suspect or whether she is a current or former minister.
He said, “One of the problems we have in the country is the real estate. Ninety to 100 per cent of the resources are being laundered through the real estate. Of course, they are being regulated but they are not enough in terms of how they give their returns to the Special Control Unit.
“We investigated a matter in which a bank MD marketed a property to a minister and agreed to purchase it at $37.5 million. The bank then sent a vehicle to her house to evacuate $20 million from her house in the first instance.
“The bank succeeded to put it in their system and paid the developer and then a lawyer set up a special purpose vehicle where the title documents were transferred into and of course, he is posing as the owner of the house.
“Without the help of the banker, the minister couldn’t have imagined collecting $20 million from anyone with opportunity from the real sector; she could not have thought of where to launder the proceeds of crime.”
