Abdulrasheed Bawa, former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has shed light on how public funds were looted under the guise of fuel subsidy payments. In his newly released book, The Shadow of Loot & Losses: Uncovering Nigeria’s Petroleum Subsidy Fraud, Bawa details widespread corruption in the fuel subsidy regime, exposing how billions of naira were siphoned through fraudulent practices. Drawing from his firsthand experience as a lead investigator on the EFCC’s special task force that probed the 2012 subsidy scandal, Bawa reveals how companies claimed subsidies for fuel that was never imported or for shipments grossly inflated in volume. These manipulations led to excessive government payouts, forming the core of what he describes as one of Nigeria’s largest financial crimes. One prominent scheme involved the falsification of bills of lading, allowing fraudsters to exploit global price variations by altering shipping records to claim inflated subsidies. Other deceptive practices highlighted include ghost importing, round-tripping, double claims, product diversion, and fuel smuggling. Bawa, who served as EFCC Chairman from 2021 to 2023, attributes the success of these fraudulent operations to forged documents, lax regulatory enforcement, and deep-rooted collusion between corrupt government officials and private sector players. His account offers an insider's perspective into the multi-trillion-naira fraud that plagued Nigeria’s petroleum sector. “Single shipments were often used to obtain multiple subsidy payments. Subsidised fuel was frequently diverted to black markets or smuggled out of Nigeria for profit. “The Shadow of Loot And Losses is not just a chronicle of fraud; it is a call to action — a demand for transparency, accountability, and reform in Nigeria’s public finance management, especially in the oil sector,” he said.