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THE First Bank of Nigeria Plc has laid before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) a complaint of alleged forgery against the Managing Director of an engineering company.
LAGOS - THE First Bank of Nigeria Plc has laid before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) a complaint of alleged forgery against the Managing Director of an engineering company.
The bank, through its solicitors, Ayodeji Odu and Co, in a June 30, 2005 petition to the EFCC, accused Mr. Panayot Panayatov, a Bulgarian, of submitting to it (bank) a forged document with a view to avoiding "satisfaction of a N40 million loan facility extended to his company, Transengineering Nigeria Limited."
The loan was in respect of the re-certification of a Certificate of Occupancy belonging to the engineering firm.
The solicitors in the petition said: "Our client had extended banking facilities of about N40,000,000.00 (Forty million naira only) to the said company and the facility was served by the Certificate of Occupancy. The company duly executed the Legal Mortgage forms and memorandum of title deposit with our client.
"The bank, however, at the commencement of the current re-certification exercise and, to its amazement, discovered that the company acting through its Managing Director, Mr. Panayot Angflov Panayatov, did not surrender the original Certificate of Occupancy in its custody to the bank and the said Mr. Panayot Angflov Panayatov took same directly to the Abuja Geographical Information System for re-certification.
"The bank immediately contacted the said Mr. Panayot Angflov Panayatov who handed over what he purported to be the original acknowledgment letter in his custody on the re-certification to the bank. It was, however, discovered that Mr. Panayatov had made a coloured photocopy of the original acknowledgment letter which he held out as original through Mr. Ayeni who is the Public Relations Officer of the company, while holding on to the original with the aim of collecting the re-certified Certificate of Occupancy which ought to be in possession of the bank.
"All efforts made, uptill date, to persuade Mr. Panayatov to hand over this document have failed and he has been deliberately evading the officers of the bank. The facility extended to the company remains unpaid in full.
"The actions of Mr. Panayatov amounts to economic and financial crime by:
•Holding out as genuine a forged document to deliberately avoid satisfaction of a lawful facility extended to his company by the bank.
•Forgery by coloured photocopy of Abuja Geographical Information System acknowledgment letter dated 8th December, 2004 in respect of Certificate of Occupancy No. MISC.13757.
•Sabotage of the Nigerian economic reforms.
"We want your office to investigate this matter with a view of possible prosecution of Mr. Panayot Angflov Panayatov and Mr. Ayeni respectively."