Diezani Alison-Madueke , was last Friday, arrested by the
International Corruption Unit of the British National Crime Agency (NCA) and
four other suspects in London.
SaharaReporters has exclusively obtained intelligence documents
and briefing on financial information regarding Mrs. Alison-Madueke’s loots.
An intelligence analyst with intimate knowledge of the
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.”
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 from 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.
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