The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has said the agency has forfeited cash and assets worth more than $500 million to the Federal Government in the past three years.

Olukoyede disclosed this on Wednesday while delivering a lecture at the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime in the United Kingdom.

He said within three years since his assumption as Chairman, the agency has been able to forfeit both cash and assets worth over half a billion dollars to the government.

The EFCC chairman explained that Nigeria’s legal framework empowers the commission to seek the forfeiture of assets suspected to be proceeds of crime without waiting for a criminal conviction, adding that the provision is similar to legal frameworks in countries such as Australia and Canada.

“We have similar to what is obtainable in Australia and Canada that empowers us to apply the forfeiture to proceeds of what is suspected to be proceeds of crime,” he said.

Olukoyede said the process begins with an application to the high court based on probable suspicion that an asset represents proceeds of crime.

The EFCC chairman cited the recent forfeiture of an aircraft allegedly linked to a member of a monitoring committee for a power project in Nigeria.

According to him, the individual was found to have allegedly collected a $30 million bribe, leading to the forfeiture of the aircraft.

“This aircraft was forfeited by someone who was supposed to be a member of monetary committee of a power project in Nigeria. We discovered he collected a bribe of about $30 million in Nigeria,” he said.

“He forfeited that about three months ago and it has been added to the presidential air fleet at the moment.”

He also disclosed that the EFCC had forfeited a property containing about 753 housing units from a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).