Sordid Tales Of How Nigeria Was Looted
THE modus operandi of the 'Abacha criminal organisation' and efforts by Nigeria to identify and retrieve funds looted by the late General Sani Abacha and associates are the focus of an upcoming book on Recovering Stolen Assets.
It is edited by Mark Pieth of the Basel Institute on Governance and published by Peter Lang, to be released later in the year.
A chapter of the book is written by Enrico Monfrini, the Federal Government lawyer in proceedings in 10 jurisdictions (countries) against members of the Abacha family and their associates.
It stated that the government used a combination of sending requests for mutual assistance and lodging criminal complaints for money laundering in jurisdictions "where assets of the Abacha criminal organisation had been identified or were suspected to be."
"This strategy resulted in the freezing of about $2 billion in 10 jurisdictions, of which to date, $1.2 billion has been recovered by Nigeria through mutual assistance, forfeiture or settlements," it said.
Countries identified as holding some of the looted funds include Switzerland, Luxembourg, United Kingdom, Liechtenstein and Jersey.
In addition, mutual assistance and/or criminal proceedings have been initiated in Austria, the Bahamas, Belgium, the Cayman Islands, France, Germany, Kenya and the United States.
The road to identifying and recovering some of the looted funds was paved by the Abdulsalami Abubakar regime, when on July 23, 1998, it set up a Special Investigation Panel (SIP) with the task of investigating the looting and corruption that took place during the Abacha government.
The panel, headed by Deputy Commissioner, Peter Gana of the Special Fraud Unit of the Nigeria Police, published a preliminary report in November 1998, which focused on the crimes for which evidence could be found in Nigeria, notably the systematic pillage of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The report described the modus operandi of the looters thus:
- General Sani Abacha directed Ismaila Gwarzo, his National Security Adviser, to present him with false funding requests for security operations or equipment, which he had the power to authorise.
- Funds were mostly directly remitted in cash - $1,131 million and £413 million or in travellers' cheques $50 million and £3.5 million - by the Central Bank of Nigeria to Ismaila Gwarzo, who then had most of the funds taken to General Sani Abacha's house.
- From there, they were taken by his oldest son, Mohammed Abacha, and laundered through Nigerian banks or by Nigerian or foreign businessmen to offshore accounts belonging to Mohammed Abacha, Abba Abacha, Abdulkadir Abacha and Abubakar Bagudu.
The book stated that Nigeria had long been plagued by corruption, but under General Abacha, corrupt practices became blatant and systematic.
"Funds were removed in cash from the Central Bank, sometimes by the truckload, and taken out of the country by members of the Abacha family and their associates.
"Inflated public contracts were also awarded to members of the Abacha family and/or their associates," it added.
Stressing that though many were aware at the time of the exceptional level of corruption of the Abacha regime, the full extent of the practice and the modus operandi of those crimes were only revealed to the general public after the end of the dictatorship and the investigations that followed.
The book stated that in a limited number of cases (36 transfers, totalling $386 million), the money was transferred directly from the Central Bank of Nigeria by wire to bank accounts abroad.
Such accounts were held by offshore companies, belonging either to members of the Abacha criminal organisation or to Nigerian or foreign businessmen, who then remitted the same sums to members of the organisation.
At least $1,491 million and £416 million had thus been found by the SIP to be embezzled by the Abacha criminal organisation.
The book also revealed that during the first stages of the SIP investigation, a large quantity of assets and cash was seized in Nigeria or returned to the Nigerian authorities. Other illegally acquired assets were also identified.
It said that Gen. Abubakar, in order to give a legal basis to the forfeiture of these assets, issued the Forfeiture of Assets, Etc, (certain Persons) Decree No. 53 of 16 May 1999.
This decree ordered the return to Nigeria of real property and movable assets, as well as cash, that had been acquired and held illegally by:
- certain members of his government (notably Ismaila Gwarzo, National Security Adviser, Anthony A. Ani, Minister of Finance and Bashir Dalhatu, Minister of Power and Steel);
- certain members of his family (notably Mohammed Abacha and Abdulkadir Abacha); and
- other third parties (Abubakar Bagudu and Abdulazeez Arisekola Alao).
"More than $800 million was thus returned to Nigeria as a result of this measure with Mohammed Abacha, Abba Abacha and Abubakar Bagudu returning $635 million and £75 million," it said.
Interestingly, according to the book, no evidence whatsoever of corruption could be found in Nigeria, although it was well known that Gen. Abacha, "in exchange for granting his approval for contracts of over $50,000, was taking bribes, representing up to 40 per cent of the contract price."
"This proved to be due to the fact that all corrupt payments were made from offshore bank accounts of the contractors to offshore bank accounts of members of the Abacha criminal organisation," it said.
However, on the basis of evidence gathered in Nigeria, 115 counts of charges of receiving stolen property (Article 317 Penal Code Law) were filed at the High Court, Abuja, against Mohammed Abacha and Abubakar Bagudu.
Additional charges of 68 counts were filed at the High Court against Mohammed Abacha and Abba Abacha, the two oldest surviving sons of Gen. Abacha.
Though these criminal proceedings are currently stalled by objections and appeals lodged by Mohammed Abacha, the Abuja Court of Appeal found in 2005 that Mohammed Abacha could not claim any immunity from prosecution based on Decree No. 53 of 1999.
He could also not claim 'sovereign immunity' that his father allegedly enjoyed. An appeal is still pending before the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
The book regards the Abacha case a "success story" not only because of the amounts recovered so far ($2 billion, with $1.2 billion internationally), "but because the recoveries were obtained through the mutual co-operation of prosecutors, examining magistrates and police in several jurisdictions."
It credited this success to the extraordinary political will by successive Nigerian governments, to pursue the investigations and recovery efforts, "despite efforts to destabilise by members of the Abacha criminal organisation, who were still rich and powerful."
It also commends the efforts of co-operating authorities, to assist Nigeria to recover the proceeds of crimes committed at its expense.
Book noted that by so doing, those authorities "deemed that it was in the public interest to investigate and prosecute the acts of fraud, money laundering and participation in a criminal organisation that had taken place within their respective jurisdictions on a very large scale."
