Stolen $2bn: Report exposes Abacha looting machinery, strategies

• FG drags UK to court over £150m loot

Fresh facts have emerged on the modus operandi used by a former Head of State, late Gen. Sani Abacha, to steal humongous amount from Nigeria’s treasury and stashed the funds running into two billions of dollars away in secret foreign accounts.

This is coming as the Nigerian government has sued Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) over €180 million (£150 million) reportedly stashed abroad by the late dictator, asking that the funds be returned to the country (Nigeria).

In a new report by the Telegraph of the UK, Abachi was said to have executed the looting after seizing power in a 1993 coup, using his position as Nigeria’s head of state to place himself above the law and skim vast sums of money from the oil-rich nation.

For instance, the report stated that he would tell advisers to make spurious requests to him for money to deal with national “emergencies”, according to the US court documents.

Signed letters would then be sent to the CBN, which would provide cash, travellers’ cheques or arrange a wire transfer.

The report added, “Money was stuffed into boxes or bags and transported to Abacha’s house, before associates arranged for it to be sent abroad.

“At least $2 billion is thought to have been stolen this way, using more than 60 letters to the central bank.

“Abacha also arranged for the government to sell bonds to a company controlled by his allies before buying them back at vastly inflated prices, generating an illicit windfall of $282 million.”

Separately, the report stated that Abacha and his associates extorted French engineering firm, Dumez Group, of $97 million and used his spoils to live a luxurious lifestyle.

“Inside his many sprawling homes, he kept piles of glittering jewellery, including gold necklaces and rings, and at one stage as much as $100 million in cash,” the report noted.

However, the money Abacha and his associates plundered became the subject of an international search after the dictator’s sudden death in 1998 at the age of 54.

The report stated that weeks after his death, Abacha’s widow was caught trying to flee the country with 38 suitcases packed with money and his family later forfeited nearly $1 billion.

“Yet the only clues hinting at where other stashes of money could be found were a few details of secret offshore bank accounts discovered by authorities,” it said.

“Since then, the Nigerians have sought foreign help to recover as much as possible, with more than $1 billion eventually returned from Switzerland alone,” it added.

Efforts to recover the stolen funds have reportedly been hampered by the sheer complexity of Abacha’s dealings as well as marathon legal battles that have dragged on for years, some involving former associates.

The latest is that the Nigerian government has sued Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) over control of €180 million (£150 million) stashed abroad by former Head of State, late Gen. Sani Abacha.

According to the UK Telegraph, the case is expected to spark fresh questions about dirty money flowing through the City of London.

Nigeria is asking the NCA to release funds (about N84.5 billion) that it froze at the request of the US authorities.

In just one example of the web of transactions crisscrossing the globe, some US prosecutors outlined in court filings how money was laundered by Abacha and his associates through bank accounts in Lagos, London, New York, Paris, Zurich, and Geneva.

The assets were stashed in banks, including Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and Banque SBA, according to the lawsuit, although there was no suggestion that the banks were involved in any wrongdoing.

The Telegraph stated, “This legal action eventually resulted in a 2020 deal to repatriate about $321 million, which had been laundered through the US banking system and then held in accounts in Jersey under the name of Doraville Properties Corporation, a British Virgin Islands company, and Abacha’s son, Mohammed.”

The new development comes as Britain fights claims that it has been very tolerant of dirty money flowing through the City of London.

US officials said last month that they were concerned that deep links between the UK and several Russian oligarchs meant that sanctions issued against Moscow if it invades Ukraine could be rendered ineffective.

Last Sunday, Briish Labour MP David Lammy accused ministers of doing too little to deal with corruption in Britain.

Lammy said, “We have to fix the dirty money problem we have, this huge problem of money laundering in London, of corruption and fraud.

“There’s so much that (ministers) are not doing. Joe Biden knows it and he’s concerned.”

But simultaneously, another court tussle in the UK is happening in parallel. At stake is more than €90 million, some of which came from Abacha’s security votes fraud, according to a High Court judgement issued in 2014.

The money is said to be controlled by a Singapore-based trust set up for the benefit of the family of Abubakar Bagudu, the serving governor of Kebbi State, who is accused of playing an “instrumental role” in many of Abacha’s corrupt schemes by the US prosecutors.

Bagudu has always denied any wrongdoing. His office did not respond to a request for comment, the report said.

His brother, Ibrahim, is a director of two companies known as Blue Holdings owned by the Singapore trust.

According to the Pandora Papers, a leaked cache of documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists last year, the Bagudu brothers enlisted Farrer & Co, an elite London law firm that has advised the Queen, to help them set up these businesses.

They moved €98 million from a British Virgin Islands trust to a new structure spanning Singapore and the Cook Islands.

Farrer & Co said it carried out “extensive due diligence” on Bagudu and that it obtained approval from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), the precursor to the NCA, to move the funds.

The amount reportedly controlled by the Singapore trust may now have grown to as much as €180 million and kept in accounts at Waverton Investment Management and James Hambro & Partners, both in London.

The NCA has been working with American authorities in a bid to confiscate the funds and return them to “the people of Nigeria,” the report stated.

However, the Nigerian government wants them to be returned directly to the country and the parties, including lawyers for Bagudu, have been holding negotiations about a possible settlement, court filings in the US show.

Bagudu struck a deal with the Nigerian government in 2003, in which he agreed to return a sum of money but made no admission of wrongdoing, and the agreement was reaffirmed by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2018.

This is interpreted to mean almost 70 per cent of the UK money could be handed to Bagudu if returned.

Court filings showed the Nigerian government subsequently sought to unlock the funds and repatriate them in legal action against the NCA – a move that was opposed by the UK and the US.

The country hired Kingsley Napley, the London law firm famed for representing a host of celebrities, including Rebekah Vardy, to represent it.

The report quoted Spotlight on Corruption, a non-profit campaign group, as saying that the case raises questions about whether, “law enforcement is being paid and resourced enough to get its act together”.