A staff of the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company, NSPMC, is in police custody for allegedly being in possession of forged currency to the tune of N900,000.The suspect, Osakpolo Igbinosa, was arrested on Wednesday, September 19 by detectives from the Area N police command at Ijede in Ikorodu area of Lagos, with the forged notes in one thousand naira denominations.
The police officers reportedly acted on a tip-off after the suspect visited a bureau de change operators at Ikorodu to exchange the cash for US Dollars.
Following his arrest, the suspect admitted that he had been in the business since 2010.
“The naira notes are not fake per se, but they have not reached final state of production and there are no serial numbers on them. I did not print the cash but these notes are genuine ones; I stole them to pay a debt,” he said.
It was gathered that the suspect who used to live in a room apartment at Ketu area of the state had built his house and bought a Nissan Pathfinder jeep from the proceeds of counterfeiting.
Ngozi Braide, the state police spokesperson, said the police were alerted by one Abdulraham Abdullahi after Igninosa of the “Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Company located on Victoria Island with staff number MSC./4503” exchange the fake N900,000 for $3,000.
“During the transaction, the said N900,000 was discovered to be fake because the notes do not have security/minting numbers. The suspect was promptly arrested by the police and during interrogation, he confessed to being a security man attached to the NSPMC and that he stole the N900,000 counterfeit money from the office," she said.
Braide added that Igbinosa “attempted to bribe the police who came to effect his arrest with the sum of N300,000 but the offer was turned down.”
She also stated that the police recovered N320,000 in real notes from the suspect, adding that he would soon be charged to court.
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