The Police Kwara state Command has arrested 14 people for an alleged illegal dealing in selling and buying of the nation’s currency notes.
The people who are mostly teenagers three females were paraded at the weekend before newsmen at the State Police Headquarters.
The command’s Police Public Relations Officer, Ajayi Okasanmi who spoke on the behalf of the state Commissioner of Police, Bolaji Fafowora, said the alleged activities of the suspects were contrary to Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Act Sections 20 and 21 which make the sale of or trading in the currency a punishable offense.
Okasanmi disclosed that the Police, acting on intelligence, arrested the suspects from different locations within Ilorin, the state capital.
He said that an unspecified number of both new and old currencies of various denominations were recovered from the suspects.
The police spokesman said an investigation into the matter is ongoing to ascertain the source of the Naira notes and assured that the suspects would soon be charged to court.
He said that the Police and the CBN will continue on the clampdown on perpetrators of the offense to make sure they are punished in accordance with the dictate of the law.
Okasanmi cautioned members of the public against spraying of Naira notes on occasions, folding, writing on the Naira, squeezing and all other abuses of the currency
One of the suspects Mojeed Lawal who said he is a printer said he got involved in the business of trading of the currency note because his boss who recruited him as a printer operates the business and asked him to do it on his behalf.
CGTN