The officials of the State Security Service, DSS, have arrested no fewer than 14 persons for illegally selling new naira notes in Kano State.
The DSS operatives made the arrest after a tip-off from the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corps.
The state Commandant of the NSCDC, Adamu Zakari, while parading the suspects at NSCDC state headquarters in Kano, explained that the DSS handed them over to them.
The illegal selling of new currency notes contravenes the CBN Act, Section 20 of counterfeit, hawking, sell or otherwise trade the naira notes, coins or any other note issued by the bank.
The suspects included Alhaji Ubandi Hotoro, 82, Haruna Yahaya, 42, Rabiu Ibrahim, 34, Ismaila Mohammad Umar, 20 and Nura Aminu, 45, Nasiru Adamu, 40 and Nazef Lawal, 20.
Others were Sulaiman Tijjani, 35, Mustapha Ismail Haruna, 47, Aminu Jibril, 23, Lawal Ibrahim, 40, Abubakar Jibril, 45, Abdullahi Hassan, 30 and Fatima Ibrahim, 30, he noted.
Zakari promised that the NSCDC, DSS and CBN will continue to clamp down on perpetrators of the illegal act which is a punishable offence under the CBN Act.
He said, “For the avoidance of doubt, the act of spraying the naira notes at occasions, soiling and writing on it, squeezing handling as well as counterfeiting the country currency note are abuse of the naira are punishable by the law.”
”As soon as investigation into the matter is completed, the suspects will be charged to court.”