25 September 2016, Abuja – A seven-man investigative team of the United Kingdom’s anti corruption agency, the National Crime Agency, has arrived Nigeria to interrogate individuals suspected to be allies of a former Petroleum Resources Minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke.
According to SaharaReporters, the NCA team are in the country to quiz several associates and accomplices of the former petroleum minister.
The online medium reported that the British detectives, comprising of four women and three men, were in the country as part of efforts to build a solid case in order to begin the ex-minister’s trial next year.
It stated that one of the ex-minister’s allies being interrogated by the UK detectives was Donald Chidi Amamgbo, a California-based lawyer and Jide Omokore, who is currently on bail after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission arrested and charged him with fraud.
Amamgbo was reportedly detained by the EFCC, and later granted “administrative bail.”
The UK investigative team is also expected to interrogate several oil dealers who were close to Alison-Madueke, and who played one role or another in a web of international financial crimes during the former minister’s tenure.
“Our source revealed that UK investigators were looking into close to 20 cases against Mrs. Alison-Madueke. However, the case that has the most traction has to do with how the former minister’s alleged used of straw companies to launder billions of dollars. Some of the alleged laundered funds were used to purchase 17 properties in the UK and elsewhere,” the online publication said.
It added that the oil dealers under investigation reportedly offered large payoffs to Alison-
Madueke for oil swap deals.
The payoffs were said to have been wired to Amamgbo.
Mrs. Alison-Madueke is currently in the UK undergoing treatment for cancer.
The NCA had earlier confiscated some funds from the former minister, her mother, and the wife of a Ghanaian businessman, Kevin Okyere, who is also named in a series of shady deals involving Alison-Madueke.
- Punch
