MMIA Cleaner, Tijani Owolabi Caught With N53 Million Cash At Lagos Airport

Mr. Tijani Owolabi, an airport cleaner has been arrested with the sum of $271,135, which translates to about N53m at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos according to new reports by The Punch.

The suspect was reportedly arrested by airport security personnel of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria as he tried to carry the huge sum of money through the screening point.

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Mr. Onyekwere Nnaekpe, the Deputy General Manager, Corporate Affairs, FAAN, was quoted in a statement saying that some of the foreign currency was found on Owolabi while the rest was recovered from the sanitary bucket he was holding while trying to pass through the screening machine.

Nnaekpe said the agency suspected that Owolabi was most probably conveying the currency to an accomplice at the airside of the airport. The statement by the FAAN read in part,
 Aviation security personnel of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria today September 3, 2015 prevented the trafficking of a total sum of 271,135 American dollars through the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja.
The sum was found on a worker with one of the cleaning contractors at the airport, Mr. Tijani Owolabi, during a pat down at one of the screening points at ‘D’ Finger of the international terminal.
The airport cleaner who was suspected to be conveying the foreign currency to an accomplice at the sterile area of the terminal, was immediately apprehended by aviation security staff on duty and handed over to the appropriate security agencies at the airport for further investigation.”