CBN Freezes 194 Accounts of Companies, BDCs

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been granted permission by The Federal High Court, Abuja, to freeze 194 bank accounts belonging to firms, Bureaux de Change and others.

According to reports documents on its website show that the freezing would the CBN to conduct investigations into suspicious activities.

In one of the three documents on its website, the apex said it got an order to freeze 60 bank accounts of Bluebeam Capital Limited domiciled in 13 different banks.

Bluebeam, as the respondent had eight accounts each in Access Bank and Keystone Bank; seven each in First Bank and Ecobank; five each in UBA and GTBank; four each in Fidelity Bank, FCMB and Sterling Bank; three accounts in Polaris Bank; two each in Wema Bank and Heritage Bank; and one in Providus Bank.

In another document, the CBN said it got an order to freeze 84 accounts in 17 banks.

The third documents revealed that the court granted CBN permission to freeze 50 accounts domiciled in different banks.

The motions exparte which were signed on different dates sought the orders of the court to direct the banks to freeze all other bank accounts of the defendants for a period of 180 days, pending the outcome of investigation and inquiry being conducted by the CBN.

In the document signed by the Presiding Judge, A.R. Mohammed, the court empowered the CBN to direct the banks to freeze all the bank accounts for a period of 45 days only, pending the outcome of investigation.

The court added that the order may be extended upon good reasons shown.