Former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke and a former Managing Director of a parastatal under the NNPC got themselves into trouble with the police in the United Kingdom following the purchase of houses each in London.
The PUNCH reports that the actions of the former minister and the sacked NNPC top shot had sent the police investigators after them since 2013.
Alison-Madueke and the ex-MD had bought a house each in London through a mortgage but the two were said to have attracted suspicion when they offered to pay huge sum to clear the mortgage on the properties.
The newspaper quoting a source said the ex-minister’s house cost £12.5m, adding that source was however silent on the cost of the house bought by the former MD of the subsidiary of the NNPC.
As a result, UK’s National Crimes Agency had dispatched a team to Abuja for an investigation into the incomes of the affected public officers because of the huge amount of money that was being paid steadily to defray the amount on the mortgage.
The source explained to The Punch that the police suspected that the mortgaged London properties might have been serviced with laundered money from the Government of Nigeria.
A source was quoted as saying, “This particular investigation did not originate from Nigeria. I can tell you that this is different from the investigation being conducted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission into the financial operations of the NNPC under Alison-Madueke.
“This is a strictly UK investigation and it has to do with the procurement of a property in the UK for £12.5m through a mortgage arrangement in London.
“The UK authorities became suspicious when they realised that the agreed monthly amount for the mortgage was too high for the income of a public official without other sources of income.
“You know the (UK) people; they kept quiet when the whole arrangement was going on in 2013. They allowed the funds to go into their economy before they moved in against them with the intent to seize the properties.
“She was not the only person that bought the properties. The other guy, a close ally from the NNPC also bought a house in London. These are the issues the UK police are investigating.”
The investigation, which commenced in 2013 climaxed Friday last week with the arrest of Alison-Madueke and four others by the UK police for alleged fraud.
The EFCC raided the residence of the ex-minister at Asokoro same day she was arrested in the UK.
Although the raid did not yield any huge financial recovery contrary to media reports, the operatives from the Subsidy Unit of the EFCC carted away several documents from the residence.
The EFCC operatives, who insisted that only N1.2m was recovered from the Asokoro residence of the minister, said that the files moved away from her house were being analysed.
When contacted, the spokesperson for the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, on Monday declined to comment on the Alison-Madueke saga.
Uwujaren said he did not know anything about the ex-minister’s case.
Meanwhile, the British National Crime Agency on Monday obtained court permission to temporarily seize £27,000 (N8.078m) from a former petroleum resources minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, Reuters reports.
The ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s oil minister between 2010 and 2015 and her cohorts were arrested in London last Friday and charged with money laundering offences.
In a related development, a London court granted the granted six months to hold the sum of £27,000 (N8.05m) allegedly seized from former Petroleum Minister, Mrs Diezani Alison- Madueke, when she was arrested with four other people on Friday.
The Guardian cites a spokeswoman for the City of Westminster Magistrate Court as saying, “I can confirm that an application for the continued holding of cash till April 6, next year was granted this morning,” while inquiring if the 59-year old former minister was charged at the Marylebone road court.
When the newspaper asked how much the cash in question is, she replied, “27,000.” Do you mean £27,000, The Guardian asked and she answered, “Yes, £27,000.”
When asked if the former minister herself was in court for the application, the woman said: “We are on the first floor and the courtroom where the application was heard is on the fourth floor, so I can’t say whether she was there or not.”
Later, The Guardian contacted the National Crime Agency, NCA, and when asked if the former minister and those arrested with her were present in court, a press officer of the agency said: “We cannot comment on any individual cases, until the people have actually been charged.”
When asked if the NCA has any plan to sooner or later charge the individuals who were arrested on Friday, he replied: “We have not scheduled any charges.”
The Rainbow with web reports
