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| Wagbatsoma |
The convict, Walter Wagbatsoma, 47, was imprisonment for money laundering. This was even as he was disqualified from being a company director for six years.
The Lincolnshire police said that Walter Wagbatsoma, fraudulently obtained funds in the UK was laundered through an account in Dubai under the control of a co-conspirator Oluwatoyin Allison.
Allison, a UK national, who was convicted in his absence at an earlier trial in April 2017, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment.
According to the police, funds were then transferred to Wagbatsoma’s account in the UK. Wagbatsoma was convicted of conspiracy to launder money in an international fraud and money laundering investigation.
The investigation, which was conducted by Lincolnshire Police Economic Crime Unit under Operation Tarlac, discovered that over £12m was defrauded from public bodies including hospital trusts, housing associations and councils around the UK.
Wagbatsoma was initially detained on a European Arrest Warrant in June 2016, while travelling through Germany. He was extradited soon afterwards and charged with conspiring with others to launder the proceeds of fraud through his business interests in the UK.
Wagbatsoma, an oil and gas businessman, was on trial in Nigeria at the time of his arrest for his part in a £1.9 billion oil subsidy fraud for which he was convicted and sentenced in his absence to 10-years imprisonment in January last year.
This is the third criminal trial for this operation and follows the successful conviction of 12 other defendants in the investigation which began with a complaint of fraud from Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust in September 2011, in which £1.28m was fraudulently obtained by the gang.
Deputy Chief Constable Craig Naylor said: “Proceedings are now underway to recover a large amount of money, and I want to personally thank partners for their support and co-operation with us in this investigation and congratulate my officers and staff on a job well done.”
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