Financial secrecy, society and vested interests Abacha: the

Financial secrecy, society
and vested interests
Abacha: the Kleptocrat’s legacy, and
James Ibori,
Nigeria’s president manqué
Tim Daniel
20 – 22 November 2012,
Bergen, Norway
© 2012 Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP & Edwards Wildman Palmer UK LLP
Some notorious kleptocrats of recent years
and estimated sums looted
Abacha
Alamieyeseigha
Dariye
Ibori
$3-5bn
$40m
£6m
$300m-$3.4bn
Mobutu
Chiluba
Obiang
Bongo
Nguesso
$12bn
£50m
$100m+
$130m
$?
Bin Ali
Mubarak
Gadaffi
Mugabe
Anglo-Leasing
$3bn
£1-70bn
$32bn
$?
$1bn
______________________________________________________
Marcos
Bhutto/Zardari
Suharto
Duvalier
$624m
$??
$15-70bn
$20m
Nigerian state governor funded international playboy lifestyle
with £50million fraud as he rose from humble roots working in
London DIY store
♦  James
Ibori bought a portfolio of luxury London homes and a fleet of
armoured Range Rovers
♦  Fraudster may have stolen $250million from Nigerian coffers as he rose
through the ranks
♦  He
spent £15,000 in two-day stay at London's The lanesborough hotel
♦  He owned SEVEN properties in Britain
♦  Ibori, 49, siphoned off millions by inflating state contracts
His rise from DIY store worker to international playboy with a £250million
fortune is the stuff of dreams.
A few years after quitting his £5,000-a-year job as a cashier for Wickes,
James Ibori had become one of Nigeria's most influential and richest
politicians.
He wasted no time spending his new-found wealth on luxury homes, topof-the-range cars, five-star travel and fees at exclusive boarding schools.
Playboy lifestyle: James Ibori, 49, admitted a fraud totalling
more than £50million. The former Nigerian state governor
had a fleet of cars and six luxury properties in Britain
But yesterday the 49-year-old stood shame-faced in the dock of London's
Southwark Court as he admitted stealing tens of millions of pounds from the oilrich state he governed in Nigeria. Scotland Yard detectives believe his fraud could
exceed £250million.
He was on trial in the UK because much of the stolen money was laundered
through his London office.
Ibori moved from Nigeria to West London in the late 1980s and was found guilty of
stealing goods from the Wickes store he worked at in Ruislip in 1990.
A year later he was convicted of handling a stolen credit card. He moved back to
Nigeria and worked for its president, Sani Abacha, as a policy consultant.
Rising quickly through the ranks of the ruling People's Democratic Party, he was
voted governor of Delta State in 1999, winning re-election four years later.
In power, he systematically stole from the public purse, taking kickbacks and
transferring state funds to his own bank accounts around the world.
Luxury: Exclusive home that Ibori bought in Hampstead,
north London, with £2.2million in cash in 2001
He was helped by family members, including his wife Theresa, sister
Christine Ibori-Ibie, his mistress Udoamaka Oniugbo, and Mayfair lawyer
Bhadresh Gohil.
A massive police investigation into Ibori's activities revealed he had
bought six properties in London, including a six-bedroom house with
indoor pool in Hampstead for £2.2million and a flat opposite the nearby
Abbey Road recording studios.
There was also a property in Dorset, a £3.2million mansion in South
Africa and further real estate in Nigeria.
Extravagant: Ibori, 49, owned an apartment in this block on
Abbey Road, London, opposite the famous music studios
Fleet of cars: The former Nigerian state governor owned a
number of cars including this Bentley Continental worth in
the region of £150,000
He owned a fleet of armoured Range Rovers costing £600,000 and a
£120,000 Bentley. On one of his trips to London he bought a Mercedes
Maybach for more than £300,000 at a dealer on Park Lane and
immediately shipped it to South Africa.
He bought a private jet for £12million, spent £126,000 a month on his
credit cards and ran up a £15,000 bill for a two-day stay at the
Lanesborough hotel in London.
Prosecutor Sasha Wass told the court Ibori concealed his UK criminal
record, which would have excluded him from office in Nigeria.
Extraordinary extravagance: James Ibori owned a fleet of
armoured Range Rovers - including this one - bought with
the proceeds of his £50million fraud
Large home: James Ibori's home in Abuja, Nigeria. Today
he was facing a jail sentence after admitting a £50million
fraud
'He was never the legitimate governor and there was effectively a thief in
government house,' Miss Wass said. 'As the pretender of that public
office, he was able to plunder Delta State's wealth and hand out
patronage.'
The court heard Ibori abused his position to award contracts to his
associates including his sister and his mistress.
Scotland Yard began its investigation into Ibori after officers found two
computer hard drives in his London office that revealed his criminality.
Fraudsters: Solicitor Bhadresh Gohil and James Ibori's
wife Theresa who have already been convicted of money
laundering
Guilty: Ibori's sister Christine Ibori-Idie and his mistress
Udoamaka Okoronkwo who have both being found guilty of
money laundering
He was arrested by the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission in December 2007, but two years later a court in his home
town, Asaba, dismissed the charges saying there was not enough
evidence.
When the case was reopened by Nigerian authorities in April 2010, Ibori
fled to Dubai where he was detained at the request of the Metropolitan
Police and extradited to the UK last April.
In a packed courtroom Ibori, dressed in a dark grey suit and black shirt,
appeared in the dock to enter ten guilty pleas to fraud, money laundering
and conspiracy on what was due to be the first day of a 12-week trial.
Luxury: Homes he owned in Lagos, Nigeria
Kenton, north-west London
Homes: An apartment owned by Ibori's sister Christine
Ibori-Ibie in Brent, north-west London
A London property owned by his mistress Udoamaka
Onuigbo
His wife, his mistress and his sister were all jailed for five years each for
money laundering offences following earlier trials.
Last March, Gohil, 46, and described as Ibori's London-based lawyer, was
jailed for seven years for his role in the scam.
Attempts will be made to confiscate as much of Ibori's money and assets
as possible so that they can be returned to Nigeria.
The Met's Detective Inspector Paul Whatmore said: 'It is always rewarding
for anyone working on a proceeds of corruption case to know that the
stolen funds they identify will eventually be returned to some of the
poorest and most vulnerable people in the world.'
Ibori will be sentenced on April 16 and 17.
Fraud: A flat owned by Udoamaka Onuigbo, Ibori's
mistress, in central London
A property he bought in Shaftesbury, Dorset, for £311,000
in 2005
James Ibori, a petty thief who eventually became one of Nigeria's
richest men, has received a 13-year jail sentence after admitting
fraud of nearly £50m, described by the judge as probably
"ludicrously low".
The Metropolitan police estimates that Ibori embezzled $250m
(£157m) of Nigerian public funds.
"In the light of other matters, perhaps that is a ludicrously low figure
and the figure may be in excess of £200m, it is difficult to tell,"
Judge Anthony Pitts told Southwark crown court in London on
Tuesday.
"The confiscation proceedings may shed some further light on the
enormity of the sums involved."
Andrew Mitchell, the UK international development secretary, said:
"James Ibori's sentence sends a strong and important message to
those who seek to use Britain as a refuge for their crimes.
"Corruption is a cancer in developing countries and the [UK]
coalition government has a zero tolerance approach to it. We are
committed to rooting out corruption wherever it is undermining
development, and will help bring its perpetrators like Ibori to justice
and return stolen funds to help the world's poorest."
As Ibori was sentenced, NGOs called for further investigation into
how he managed to move his money through his British and US
bank accounts. Global Witness called for a thorough investigation
into British banks for their roles in the laundering of millions of
pounds by Ibori.
"By doing business with Ibori and his associates, these banks
facilitated his corrupt behaviour and allowed him to spend diverted
state assets on a luxury lifestyle, including a private jet and
expensive London houses, while many Nigerians continue to live
in poverty,"
Robert Palmer, Global Witness
The FSA has said it will take a tougher line in future after an
industry-wide review in 2011 of compliance with money-laundering
rules. Last month, Coutts, the Queen's banker, was fined £8.75m
for breaches of money-laundering rules after three years of
"serious" and "systemic" problems in handling the affairs of
customers vulnerable to corruption because of their political links
The case has also embarrassed DfID. CDC Group, the private
enterprise arm of DfID, according to the BBC, put $47.5m into a
private equity fund, Emerging Capital Partners, which invested in
Nigerian companies allegedly linked to Ibori. In January, Andrew
Mitchell issued an unreserved apology to an Anglo-Nigerian
whistleblower after the BBC's Newsnight revealed DfID had
betrayed his identity to the people he was accusing.
Dotun Oloko had warned DfID about potential problems with CDC
investments. The department passed a document containing
Oloko's name to ECP, which he had accused of investing in
potential corruption.
Financial secrecy, society
and vested interests
Abacha: the Kleptocrat’s legacy, and
James Ibori,
Nigeria’s president manqué
Tim Daniel
20 – 22 November 2012,
Bergen, Norway
© 2012 Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP & Edwards Wildman Palmer UK LLP