05 October 2015, Lagos – United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency secured the seizure of the sum of £27,000 (N8,155,164.37) in the case involving the former Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke at the Westminster Magistrates Court, London.
This is according to Sam Piranty, a journalist with The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who is monitoring the event. The following are from his Twitter handle
“Today at Westminster Magistrates Court an application for detention of cash seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act was made v Diezani”
“The application was made by the National Crime Agency #Nigeria”
“This means that she, contrary to emails from the court, may not have had to attend today”.
“Basically the NCA applied for an order that cash seized be detained #Nigeria”
“NCA have to apply on a cash seizure case within 48 hours so they must have found it recently #Nigeria”
“Or they found it earlier and this was a further application #Nigeria”
“£27,000 was seized in the case vs Alison-Madueke and CASH detained until April 2016 #Nigeria”
“Cash seized under Section 295 of proceeds of crime act until 5th April 2016 #Nigeria”
As earlier reported, the former Minister was not in court but her mother, Beatrice Agama and one Melanie Spencer, were in court.
The IMMEDIATE past Petroleum Resources Minister, Mrs Alison-Madueke, was arrested on Friday with four other people by the International Corruption Unit (ICU) of the UK’s National Crimes Agency. She was however granted bail after she had been detained for several hours. According to London Police she will be charged to court for money laundering.
The agency announced on its website on Friday that it had arrested five people “across London” as part of an investigation into suspected bribery and money laundering offences but stopped short of naming the suspects.
The Asokoro, Abuja residence of the immediate-past minister of Petroleum Resources was also stormed by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), in what has been described as part of a multinational investigation of the former minister.
According to a security source, EFCC made “significant recovery” of documents at her Abuja residence.
- Vanguard
