The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has said that landlords who rent their houses to Internet fraudsters, otherwise known as ‘Yahoo Boys’ could be prosecuted for allowing their premises to be used to commit cyber-crime.
The Commission made this known ahead of the next edition of its public conversation series, tagged: “#EFCCConnect”, which has been slated for Wednesday.
A successful conviction could attract not less than fifteen years imprisonment.
The topic: ‘Give your house to Yahoo boys, spend 15 years in jail’, would be discussed by the Commission’s Legal and Prosecution Officers, Sylvanus Tahir and Cosmos Ugwu.
The EFCC had repeatedly warned house owners and commercial real estate agents against making properties available to cyber criminals and fraudsters.
Recall that the EFCC Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa,
when he received the President of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors Valuers (NIESV), Emmanuel Wike, at his office in Abuja earlier in the month, had lamented that real estates are safe havens for money launderers.
“Just last month, we discovered a retired civil servant built a university in Kaduna and nobody, including your members, reported such transactions.
’So, I’m still bold to say that the real estate sector is one of the easiest places for money launderers. That’s why we’re empowering the Special Control Unit Against Money Laundering (SCUML) with all the necessary tools to enable us to achieve our mandate, so whatever we are doing is backed by the law”, he had said.
