The State Security Service (SSS) in Kogi in Lokoja on Tuesday announced the arrest of a syndicate, including a pastor, over the alleged printing and circulation of fake naira notes.
The Director of SSS, Mr Mike Fubara, said when he presented the suspects to newsmen that the syndicate included 15 others, including the pastor’s six children.
He named the pastor as Godson Akubuiro, the General Overseer of The Mountain of Breakthrough Deliverance Ministry, Lagos.
Fubara said SSS in its effort to trace the source of the ”worrisome fake naira currency in circulation in the state undertook a covert operation to uncover those behind the act’’.
”This operation took the service close to four months before a breakthrough resulting in the arrest of the 16-man syndicate led by Reverend Godson O. Akubuiro”, the director said.
He said that the operation took security agents to The Breakthrough Church, also known as Land of Solution, located at Plot 7, Koya Estate, Igbo Olomu, Agric, Ikorodu, Lagos.
He said that the suspects were being investigated preparatory to their prosecution.
The director said Items recovered from the suspects include equipment and materials used in printing fake currencies.
Other items recovered were a large quantity of printed fake notes, cut to size blank currency notes and N1.3 million fake naira notes.
Fubara urged the public to be wary of the fake naira notes in circulation and report suspects to the service.
Akubuiro, however, told newsmen that he was not using the money for himself but in supporting the less privileged and the needy in his congregation.
He, however, pleaded for leniency, saying men of God were often tempted like King David in the bible, who as a man after God’s heart but fell many times and was still pardoned by God