$104 Million In Banknotes Disappears From Liberian Central Bank

[Swordsmyth]

Liberia is still struggling with the aftermath of the 2014 Ebola outbreak and the stubbornly low prices of coffee and other commodities that its exporters rely on to bring in badly needed foreign capital. But to the country's lengthy list of problems, we can now add one more.

As the New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week, authorities in Liberia are investigating the disappearance of $104 million in newly printed bank notes intended for the central bank - a suspected fraud equivalent to 5% of the country's GDP.
The theft reportedly occurred some time between late 2017 and early 2018, as former President (and Nobel laureate) Ellen Sirleaf was handing over power to her successor, soccer star George Weah.

Here's WSJ:

Liberian officials said the bank notes—more than 16 billion Liberian dollars—were ordered by the central bank from overseas printers but disappeared between November and August. The money, packaged in canvas bags and 20-foot-high sealed containers, was cleared through Liberian customs between November and August but never made it to the central bank’s headquarters in the capital, Monrovia, the officials said.
The government said the matter was being taken extremely seriously because it had national-security implications.
The disappearance is a blow for Liberia’s crisis-addled economy as it recovers from the commodity-price crash and devastating Ebola epidemic that has claimed more citizen’s lives than in any other nation.

While Weah has blamed his predecessor for the disappearance, arguing that the banknotes were ordered when she was still in office, local investigative reporters discovered that the notes were cleared by Liberian customs workers back in March, after the Weah administration had taken over, according to Quartz.

The notes...were ordered by Sirleaf’s administration in 2016. Lenn Eugene Nagbe, the government’s spokesman and Cllr. Frank Musah Dean, attorney general, told reporters the containers had arrived in November, while the Sirleaf administration was still in office. But leaked shipping documents from the port show the containers were cleared in February and March of this year, after the new administration had taken over.

Sirleaf has criticized Weah for casting aspersions on her rule (tainted as it was by brazen nepotism)...

Ms. Sirleaf quickly hit back, calling it unfortunate that the government of Liberia "would give false information that wickedly impugns the reputation of past officials and by extension the country itself," according to Front Page Africa.
She said the Central Bank of Liberia had conducted an internal investigation that the current government has refused to release.

...But a breakthrough in the state's investigation revealed that both administrations may have been complicit. Investigators released a list of 15 "persons of interest" who have been ordered not to leave the country.


More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...n-central-bank

[Swordsmyth]

Where was @oyarde?

[oyarde]

Where was @oyarde?

Between Nov 2017 and Aug of 2018 I have an alibi and was not in Monrovia . I really did not know they had paper currency in Liberia , I thought they just made junk stamps and copper nickel coins for everyone else and over charge for them . It was an inside job . A regular Liberian paper currency collector cannot just carry off a twenty foot tower of paper in a shipping container .