The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), has commended the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for its operational effectiveness and collaborative efforts with it in driving activities against national and trans-border financial crimes.
Assistant Inspector General of Police and Head, Interpol National Central Bureau, Olaolu Adegbite, gave the commendation on Wednesday, during a visit of Interpol’s top officials, led by Interpol’s Executive Director, (Police Services), Cyril Gout on a courtesy visit to the Executive Chairman of EFCC, Ola Olukoyede, at the Commission’s corporate headquarters.
He specifically commended the EFCC for its local and global strides, describing it as a model and pivotal to all the Interpol’s operations.
“We have been working together, supporting one another and whatever we do at the Nigerian Police Force, specifically from the National Central Bureau (NCB), we always put EFCC first.
“EFCC is a model for us. The EFCC is an international brand. When you say EFCC, the whole world knows that it projects Nigeria in a very positive way.
“It is part of Project Agric, Project Water, all our cybercrime projects and Project Serengeti that we just concluded. In all our projects, we always invite EFCC officers and they’ve been doing amazing jobs, working as a collective to make sure that together, we protect our country.
“The EFCC is one of the first agencies that the NCB linked to the i247 Network. The i247 Network is the global system of communication for Interpol member countries,” he said.
He appreciated Olukoyede for allowing the participation of EFCC representatives at the Interpol’s Silver Working Group.
The Silver Notice was created last year specifically to tackle money laundering. He pleaded that the EFCC continues to utilize Interpol’s tools because they are multi-jurisdictional and transnational”
Adegbite disclosed that Mr. Gout was in Nigeria for the handover of the West African Police Information System (WAPIS), to West African regional and national authorities.
The System is a digitized information-sharing network among law enforcement agencies to break criminal activities among the 16 ECOWAS states.
“The WAPIS system is supposed to be domiciled with all our law enforcement agencies where they upload data. Criminal databases are key, especially digitized ones like WAPIS in resolving all forms of crimes,” he said.
He further disclosed that West Africa has the unique challenge of crime dispersal. Criminals migrate across regional borders easily but with WAPIS, crimes such as human trafficking, money laundering, economic crimes, cyber crimes and terrorism can be tackled through robust information amenities among ECOWAS member nations.
Adegbite recalled that the EFCC played a leading role in operationalizing WAPIS right from the onset.
“When the WAPIS programme started I think in 2019, the EFCC became the leader of the WAPIS project. It was the agency which provided the largest data upload from Nigeria and it was very reassuring that it did that,” Adegbite added.
In his remark, Gout, noted that with the handover of WAPIS to Nigerian law enforcement agencies, it has become a national information system.
“It’s a Nigerian Information System to collect and share data that are relevant for the nation’s safety and security. Whatever information that we have, whatever information that we want to cross-check should be contained or shared within this information system.
“We see the national information system as the only way that we are interconnecting our information sharing and that we are efficient together. So, it is a necessity that we work together,” he said.
