Court freezes Abacha’s €5.2m bonds in Ireland

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The Irish Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) has secured orders freezing Irish-held investment bonds worth 5.22million allegedly misappropriated by the family of former Head of State, General Sani Abacha.

 Earlier this month, the CAB according Irish Independent newspaper, obtained a temporary freezing order, under the Proceeds of Crime Act, from the High Court freezing investment bonds.
The bonds were obtained with money illegally taken out of Nigeria, before it was laundered to Ireland, CAB said, via institutions in Switzerland, London, and New York. CAB also claimed the bonds, which it said were in breach of Irish tax evasion laws, were linked to the late general’s eldest surviving son, Mohammed. The freezing order was obtained on an exparte basis with only the CAB side represented.
Yesterday, representative of CAB, Benedict Ó Floinn, told Mr. Justice Raymond Fullam that the bonds are linked to the late general’s regime who took “an eye watering amount of money” from Nigerian. Counsel said CAB believed the money to acquire the bonds was illegally procured in two ways, before being laundered to Ireland. The first method involved the regime directly taking funds from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the second involved foreign corporations operating in Nigeria.
Counsel said the companies were informed by the general’s associates that contracts allowing them operate in Nigeria would be considered invalid unless the regime was “paid a percentage of the contract’s value” in order to re-validate them. After the CAB obtained the freezing orders, efforts to serve Mohammed, who has an address in Nigeria, with notice of the proceedings before the Irish High Court had been “thwarted”. This, counsel said, was due to problems with internal conflict in Nigeria and Ebola in the West Africa region.
Counsel asked that the matter be adjourned until an update on serving Mohammed can be provided to the court. The judge agreed to put the case back, with the freezing orders in place, to a date later this month. Abacha ruled Nigeria from 1993 until his death in 1998 and during his reign the late dictator, his family and their associates are believed to have looted N6.4 billion from the state coffers. The late general’s family has rejected these accusations.http://newtelegraphonline.com/court-freezes-abachas-e5-2m-bonds-in-ireland/