An investigation by SaharaReporters has revealed
some of the ways in which former Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, and her network of accomplices, family members, and shell companies sought to conceal and launder an astonishing amount of the former minister’s corruptly acquired wealth. The laundered funds are the focus of twin investigations by British and Nigerian anti-corruption agencies.
Last Friday, the International Corruption Unit of the
British National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested Mrs.
Alison-Madueke and four other suspects in London.
SaharaReporters has exclusively obtained intelligence
documents and briefing on financial information
regarding Mrs. Alison-Madueke’s extensive acts of
corruption and money laundering. Our investigation
also involved interviews with several individuals in
possession of highly sensitive information about the
illicit flow of funds to the former minister’s front
companies and individuals.
An intelligence analyst with intimate knowledge of the
embattled ex-minister’s family and business network
told SaharaReporters that UK investigators were
focusing on several real estate properties in the United
Kingdom. The source added that “[Diezani Alison-
Madueke] was most likely aware that the Crown
Prosecution [in the UK] was investigating her
properties going back as early as 2013.”
SaharaReporters learned that British prosecutors
decided to be low-key about their investigation of Mrs.
Alison-Madueke’s suspicious ownership of real estate
assets in the UK because the UK Foreign Office and
security establishment did not want to unsettle UK-
Nigerian ties by going after the former minister during
the administration of former President Goodluck
Jonathan.
Sources in the Nigerian government and law
enforcement told SaharaReporters that the National
Crime Agency (NCA), which arrested Mrs. Alison-
Madueke and four other suspects last Friday, did so
unilaterally and without the cooperation of the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
However, once the EFCC read media reports about
Mrs. Alison-Madueke’s arrest, their agents moved
swiftly to search her residences in Abuja and
elsewhere in Nigeria. The EFCC’s action led to media
reports, now established to be misleading, that UK and
Nigerian authorities were coordinating their
investigations of the former minister.
Mrs. Alison-Madueke was the most powerful minister
in the Jonathan administration, and had long been
linked to shady deals and policies in Nigeria’s oil
sector. She fled Nigeria in May, days before the
official end of her tenure as Minister of Petroleum and
the inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari’s
administration.
Earlier in May, SaharaReporters reported that Mrs.
Alison-Madueke booked herself a seat on the same
flight in which then President-elect Buhari was
traveling to London, and made awkward attempts to
strike up a conversation with Mr. Buhari. A source on
the flight told SaharaReporters that Mr. Buhari quietly
ignored the former minister during the flight.
A Nigerian who met Mrs. Alison-Madueke in the UK said the former minister claimed she was receiving medical treatment.
HOW ALISON--MADUEKE LOOTED NIGERIA AS OIL MINISTER:
Two of our sources said that the former Petroleum
Minister acquired an astonishing sum of looted funds
through shady dealings that included theft of kerosene
subsidy payments, manipulation of fuel subsidy
payments, so-called swap deals in which she used a
number of personal and corporate fronts to sell
Nigerian crude oil that was meant to be refined and
brought back for local consumption, fraudulent
acquisition of marginal oil fields and allocation of other
lucrative oil field to fronts.
Our sources disclosed that Mrs. Alison-Madueke’s
most daring fraudulent deals were her strategic
partnership agreements with two respective companies
officially owned by her most notorious fronts, Jide
Omokore and Kola Aluko. The agreements were worth
over $6 billion, according to one source. He added that
another avenue of money laundering by the former
minister was the controversial Malabu deal in which
she, former Attorney General, Mohammed Adoke, and
President Goodluck Jonathan may have pocketed close
to $2 billion between them.
Our financial intelligence source said Mrs. Alison-
Madueke was able to get away with her deals and
schemes in the oil industry because she was “one of
[former President] Jonathan’s money managers.” The
same source pointed out that the Jonathan
administration had designed the Petroleum Industry
Bill (PIB) to give Mr. Jonathan and Mrs. Alison-
Madueke “sweeping discretionary powers to award
contracts, licenses, and leases for the Nigerian
petroleum industry.”
ACCOMPLICES AND COMPANIES IN MRS. ALISON-- MADUEKE'S ORBIT:
SaharaReporters learned that several key individuals
helped the former minister to hide her loot. Two
separate intelligence reports identified one Donald
Chidi Amamgbo as a key figure in Mrs. Alison-
Madueke’s money laundering activities. Mr. Omokore,
Mr. Aluko and Walter Wagbatsoma were also named
as close collaborators in the former minister’s
suspicious web of financial activities.
Mr. Aluko, who went to near-anonymity to become a
flashy, high-flying and yacht-owning “entrepreneur,”
was identified as a “money-launderer” for Mr.
Jonathan and Mrs. Alison-Madueke. Our source
claimed that Mr. Aluko recently bought several real
estate properties in Los Angeles and New York ranging
between $8 million and $23 million. Recently, rap
mogul, Jay Z, and his wife, Beyoncé, spent their
vacation on a $50 million yacht owned by Mr. Aluko.
According to our source, Mr. Aluko’s flamboyant
lifestyle led Mr. Jonathan and Mrs. Alison-Madueke to
decide to use more discreet fronts. Besides, the
source added, Mr. Aluko also fell out with the former
Petroleum Minister Diezani when he absconded with
funds he was supposed to have laundered for her and
the former president.
Mr. Aluko’s Atlantic Energy, formerly known as Atlantic
Energy Drilling Concept Limited (AEDCNL), was one of
the major corporate entities used to stash away the
former minister’s looted funds. Mr. Aluko established
the company in Zug, Switzerland, along with Nigerian
national Temidayo Adeoye Okusame and British
national Oscar Seda Mbeche.
In July 2015, SaharaReporters had published an
investigative report that revealed connections between
Mrs. Alison-Madueke, Nigerian Petroleum Development
Company (NPDC), and Atlantic Energy. This website
reported, “on July 19, 2010, Atlantic Energy Drilling
Concept Limited (AEDCNL) was incorporated as a
portfolio company,” adding that this was barely three
months after Mrs. Alison-Madueke assumed office as
the Minister of Petroleum Resources. The report
continued: “Atlantic Energy, even without prior record
of successful experience in the oil and gas sector,
announced that it had entered into a Strategic Alliance
Agreement (SAA) with the Nigerian Petroleum
Development Company (NPDC) in April 2011. That was
exactly six months before AEDCNL was legally born.”
One oil industry expert told SaharaReporters that there
was widespread shock when Mrs. Alison-Madueke
awarded an unknown company like Atlantic Energy a
strategic agreement with the NPDC “without following
any process as stipulated in the government
procurement laws and policy.” The stated that oil
industry operators knew that the deal between Atlantic
Energy and the NPDC “was an unholy arrangement”
between the former minister, top NPDC officials, Kola
Aluko and Jide Omokore. He identified Mr. Omokore as
a “controversial business mogul” and political
financier.
According to a report published by the Natural
Resource Governance Institute, Atlantic Energy had
entered into strategic alliance deals with the NPDC for
at least five oil blocks or oil mining leases.
Walter Wagbatsoma, also listed as a “money manager”
for the former Petroleum Minister, runs several
companies that investigators found to be entangled in
Mrs. Alison-Madueke’s financial activities. An
intelligence report discussing Mr. Wagbatsoma’s
business dealings found that “he holds a private plane,
said to be bought by [Mrs. Alison-Madueke], probably
in 2011, in trust for the Petroleum Minister.”
However, Mr. Wagbatsoma is associated with a
shadowy energy company named Ontario Oil and Gas,
which trades Nigerian crude on international markets
and whose directors are currently facing money-
laundering trial in Nigerian courts. According to the
Berne Declaration, an independent watchdog
organization, Ontario Oil and Gas continues to export
Nigerian crude despite accusations by the Nigerian
government that the company misappropriated more
than 4.2 billion naira—and arrests of the firm’s
executives by the EFCC. According to the company’s
own website, it exports at least 2 million barrels of
crude oil a month.
The Natural Resource Governance Institute reported
that Ontario Oil and Gas, along with another company,
Aiteo, saw “their shares of the Nigerian crude and
products markets grow rapidly under the Jonathan
government,” despite their very limited experience. The
report also noted: “Ontario relied on a few foreign
traders to take its [petroleum] allocation to market.”
Mrs. Alison-Madueke’s third accomplice, who was
described as such in two separate intelligence reports
leaked to SaharaReporters, is Donald Chidi Amamgbo.
Mr. Amamgbo reportedly studied law at Howard
University in Washington, DC at the same time Mrs.
Alison-Madueke was studying there as a student of
architecture. It is believed that they met each other in
DC.
According to biographical information available in
intelligence reports, in January 2012 Mr. Amamgbo was
suspended from practicing law in California, where he
relocated, for one year. However, his main focus
seemed to have already turned to managing three
companies under his ownership, specifically Tidax
Energy, Mezcor SA, and Lynear SA.
Tradax, Mezcor, and Lynear are all based out of
Geneva, Switzerland and all three are connected to a
Portuguese national, Daniel Roy Joanes, and an
American national, Richard Levinson. The Natural
Resources Governance Institute characterized Tridax
as an example of suspicious conduct because the
firm’s “corporate structures stretch outside Nigeria.”
The report found that Mr. Amamgbo owned 49% of
Tridax with the remaining 51% of the ownership
belonging to Tridax Oil domiciled in Switzerland.
Further tracing the corporate structure of Tridax, it
was revealed that 100% of it is owned by a sister
company based in Malta, with 99% of that company
owned by Calpenergy Fund in Gibraltar, with 67% of it
owned in turn by Daniel Roy Joanes, with the
remaining 33% owned by Turicum Private Bank also
located in Gibraltar. This kind of circuitous ownership
arrangement often typifies an attempt by a corporate
entity’s real owners to hide their identities.
SaharaReporters obtained an intelligence report that
stated, “Mezcor SA is clearly the lead company of the
three run by Amamgbo.” Mr. Amamgbo also owns 49%
of Mezcor, with the remaining 51% owned by Mr.
Joanes and Mr. Levinson. Mr. Joanes, who previously
worked as an asset manager for Clariden Leu, later
worked for Bank Hapoalim. He also owns NFS
Partners, which is co-located in the same office as
Mezcor in Geneva.
Mr. Levinson is described in one report as having “a
scandalous past” and has the dubious distinction of
owning one of the first companies to be suspended by
the US government for fraudulent activity during
reconstruction after the Iraq War in 2003. According to
the Wall Street Journal, “a [US] federal jury in
Alexandria, VA found that Custer Battles [owned by
Levinson] defrauded the US government of $3 million
by filing faked invoices.”
US authorities later discovered that Mr. Levinson’s
companies billed the American government $10 million
for work estimated to actually cost only $4 million. In
a curious corporate sleight of hand, Mr. Levinson sold
Custer Battles to Danubia Global Inc., a company
based in Bucharest, Romania, for one dollar. It turned
out that he owned Danubia as well.
One intelligence investigation found that Mr. Levinson
“acts as a director of the five companies [in which]
Daniel Roy Joanes is also a director.”
According to another investigation, Tridax is a
beneficiary of one of “38 contracts for 1,179,000
barrels per day crude lifting awarded by the [Nigerian]
Federal Government last year.” The NNPC, which
awards these contracts, also awarded a contract to
Mezcor SA and two companies it worked with—India
Oil Company and Fujairah Refinery.
These companies’ ties to Mrs. Alison-Madueke extend
beyond questionable crude oil lifting contracts and her
relationship with Mr. Donald Chidi Amamgbo.
Investigators showed SaharaReporters documents that
established that Timi John Agama, the former
Petroleum Minister’s younger brother, has a financial
stake and is a part owner of both Mezcor and Tridax.
THE Madueke-Agama FAMILY BUSINESS NETWORK:
SaharaReporters has learned, from profiles of Mrs.
Alison-Madueke’s sons, brothers, and nephews, that
the family’s core businesses are suspiciously located
at a single address: Unit 8, Quebec Buildings,
Manchester M3 7DU in the United Kingdom. The main
business is listed as Hadley Petroleum Solutions Ltd.
But other corporate entities registered at the same
location include Ryan and Bell Solutions Ltd., Callserv
Ltd., Parrot Mobile Ltd., Mail Express Ltd., and Stone
International Ltd.
All these companies are associated with close
members of Mrs. Alison-Madueke’s family, including
nephews Abu Fari, Abiye Agama, Somze Agama, and
her son, Ugonna Madueke. According to one
intelligence report, “key in the Diezani Alison-Madueke
family business structure is her elder brother, Doye,
who is a Pentecostal Archbishop based in Manchester,
UK. SaharaReporters learned that in addition to his
business activities with the Madueke-Agama family,
Bishop Agama presides over the Apostolic Pastoral
Congress located in Manchester, UK.
Before becoming part of the clergy in 1994, Mr. Doye
Agama worked as a telecommunications consultant to
the oil industry, central and local government and the
emergency services.
Investigators told SaharaReporters that Mrs. Alison-
Madueke owns a number of properties in the United
Kingdom and the United States, under a variety of
names, often those of her family. One property,
located in London at 22 Parkwood, St. Edmunds
Terrace, St John's Wood, London, NW8 7QQ is
registered in the name of her mother, Beatrice
Agama. Her younger brother, Timi John Agama, has a
property registered under his name at 67, Wades Hill,
Winchmore Hill, London, N21 1AU.
The former minister’s elder brother, Bishop Agama,
has a property located at 27 Tavistock Square,
Holburn, London, WC1H 9HH registered to his name.
Winihin Ayuli-Jemide, a younger sister to Mrs. Alison-
Madueke, is active in organizing a series of
conferences ostensibly to empower African women.
Her seminars are called the Winihin Jemide Series.
Curiously, her conferences and seminars are often held
in cities like London and Vienna where her elder sister,
Mrs. Alison-Madueke, is suspected to have business
interests. The former minister was often invited to
speak at the conferences.
In the United States, the former Petroleum Minister
owns three properties that are registered under her
maiden name, Diezani K. Agama. They include a posh
apartment located at 1220 West Highway, Silver
Spring, Maryland, with the zip code of 20910. Her son,
Ugonna Madueke, has at least three properties
registered in his name, two in Virginia and one in
Maryland. The former minister’s son’s properties in
Virginia are located at 11711 Scooter Lane, Fairfax, VA
22030, and 4227 Summit Manor Ct, Fairfax, VA 22033.
His property in Maryland is at 13116 Silver Maple Ct,
Bowie, MD 20715.
The former minister’s husband, Admiral Alison
Amaechina Madueke, was Nigeria’s former Chief of
Naval Staff. On retiring, Mr. Madueke went into the
maritime services business, serving as the chairman or
director of numerous companies, including Radam
Maritime Services Ltd.
By : Godwin Onoghokere
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.