UK’s National Crime Agency Freezes Alison-Madueke’s London Properties

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Alison-Madueke
By Tobi Soniyi with agency report    
 
The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has frozen London properties valued at £10 million allegedly bought for the former Minister of Petroleum Resources Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, as investigations into the case against her unravel by the day.
The two properties located at Regents Park in London, along with one in Buckinghamshire, have now been frozen based on the request of Nigerian authorities.
According to online news medium, Premium Times, a London court gave the freeze order in September 2016 but details of the rulings have only recently become public.
But the agency was too late in preventing a further two properties worth £8 million from being sold.
In July, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) had revealed four properties it alleged were bought for the former petroleum minister by individuals and firms seeking her influence in obtaining lucrative oil assets and crude oil lifting contracts.
Some of the oil assets were assigned to people believed to be her cronies through Strategic Alliance Agreements (SAAs).
The DoJ’s affidavit stated that businessmen, Jide Omokore and Kola Aluko were involved in the purchase of two of the properties allegedly bought for Alison-Madueke.
The UK order obtained by Africa Confidential, a newsletter specialising in politics and business in Africa, has revealed that three of the properties have been frozen under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Apart from Alison-Madueke, Omokore and Aluko, the order also named three other individuals as defendants in the case, all of whom were believed to have received contracts or oil assets from the NNPC during the embattled minister’s tenure.
The order forbids the defendants from disposing of or dealing in the properties.
Although the NCA has frozen three properties valued at  £10 million, the agency was too late to prevent a further two properties worth £8 million from being sold.
One of these, a massive nine-bedroom house in London’s exclusive Hampstead Garden Suburb, bought by a British Virgin Islands-registered company in January 2011 for £5,850,000, was sold in May 2015.
Similarly, the property at 39 Chester Close, one of the properties listed in the DoJ case, which was bought by Aluko’s BVI-based Mortlake Investments for £1.73 million, was sold in July 2015, months before the NCA initially arrested the former minister.
UK estate agent, Daniel Ford & Co, assisted in the purchases of three of the properties, and UK solicitors firms, Addie & Co and Gordon’s Partnership, were conveyancers of the deals.
According to Corruption Watch, a UK NGO, investigators should look carefully at these organisations’ due diligence practices.
The order signals a step up in the UK’s investigation of the former minister, who was first arrested by the NCA in October 2015 when the agency confiscated her passport and £27,000 in cash found in her apartment.
However, the extent of the evidence against Alison-Madueke and the other defendants remains unclear.
The September 2016 forfeiture proceeding of the properties was held in private, meaning that the evidence that the NCA presented to support the seizure was not accessible.
Although some of the businessmen all had lucrative contracts with the NNPC, and are all accused of lavish spending for Alison-Madueke, this alone might not be enough to secure criminal prosecutions against any of them, analysts have said.
“In the U.S. and UK, simply buying luxury items for a government official like Ms. Alison-Madueke isn’t against the law,” said Aaron Sayne, a financial investigator and Senior Governance Officer at the National Resource Governance Institute.
“Investigators have to link the money involved to a crime that happened in Nigeria. And if the crime is bribery, they must also show that the items purchased rewarded her for helping someone win a government contract. That’s not easy to prove, especially well enough to stand up in court,” he pointed out.
The DoJ’s case included transcripts of conversations in which the minister appeared to admit her role in awarding the SAA contracts to Atlantic Energy – but it is still unclear whether the UK has additional evidence relating to the contracts that others received during Alison-Madueke’s tenure.

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  • Jon West

    Allison Madueke is a bloody Ijaw criminal, but she only stole what belonge to her people and should therefore be punished by only them ,in any way they deem fit. No imbecile Nigerian should comment on this woman. She is vastly a poorer thief that Modupe Alakija, the Yoruba hairdresser turned oil magnate, Muhammad Indimi, the illiterate driver of the equally illiterate Mai Deribe of Maiduguri, now both also oil magnates. Factor in DANJUMA, Sanni Bello, the Sultan of Sokoto ,an Maradona himself, using fronts all over the oil industry, and you see the injustice that is the Nigerian state and its thieving actors.

    Yes, I am Igbo, and the Ijaw will probably choose a Fulani before me, in their idiotic, warped brains, but the oil is mostly theirs an their daughter cannot steal what is hers, while other thieves go free and are feted as great businessmen and women, including the hairdresser turned the richest Black Woman. This is an evil soceity. To hell with Nigeria!!!

  • Iweajunwa Marcel

    These comments in relation to Alison Madueke’s case show clearly that we Nigerians are responsible for what the politicians are doing to us. You and I actually support them and that is why the fearless stealing go on. The political class comprising the Judiciary, the businessmen, some of the intellectuals and the professional politicians join hands to milk the people dry because they know the people – including me – are stupid.

  • Mr Abel Ighodaro

    The sad thing, is that Alison Madueke studied at Harvard, what did she learn, to steal billions.Very sad.She took the money to UK, and America.Why?

  • Ekenny

    Merry go round investigations and name dropping. Any discerning reader will no that this woman is being persecuted by Buhari for serving her country. Those allegations are mere hearsay and her linkage being unclear, conviction is quite unlikely even in the UK. She will surely conquer!

    • Abanj

      Most people and ALL Nigerians – including YOU. Know that she is a thief. We also know that you have been paid to write write this nonsense. What surprises most Nigerians is that you somehow think that because you come out say stuff like this on the internet we are somehow going to buy what you are saying or suddenly start believing she is Innocent. You really think because of what you have written Nigerians will somehow believe she didn’t steal ANY money. Nigerians are smart enough to know when Corruption is fighting back. We will will war by the grace of God. The blood of those who have been spilt as a result of corruption, the people who have died as a result of corruption will be avenged. Remember the bible -‘ I the lord God will bring the curse of a father’s sins upon even the third and fourth generations’

      • EyeServis

        I am a Nigerian. I dont know for sure that she is guilty of what she is being accused of in this case, until she is convicted of the offence. So your sweeping conclusions above are incorrect. In the end, we know the British system will reach a transparent verdict before they label her, unlike the EFCC and the Nigerian media.

        • Omooluwa

          Same way Ibori was treated.

          • EyeServis

            If that is what it takes for such an accusation be turned into a firm verdict one way or another, then so be it. But i cant help but think that God forbid someday if the EFCC were to choose to malign and incapacitate someone i know personally who may be not guilty, then all EFCC needs do is sponsor the usual kangaroo trial, judgment and conviction on the pages of newspapers and other media and, lo and behold such a person is guilty as charged, doomed to no appeal. It could be you, or i as a matter of fact. And all they would need is hearsay (dem say dem say) evidence. Totally uncivilised, another form of tyre-on-your-neck jungle justice. Sorry, but NO.

    • Michael Kadiri SocioPolitical

      It is a big pity that our investigating and justice system in Nigeria are unable to successfully punish grand larceny. Sadly due to corruption within the judiciary, those tasked with improving our common wealth get away with theft only possible this side of the world. Once you deploy sophisticated investigation and justice, these people end up where they belong – in jail – it happened with a former Nigerian Governor who was corruptly cleared of any wrong doing in Nigeria but did not pass the smell test in England.

      True NIgerians know the truth.

      And there is another justice. And there is karma. This world still belongs to God and sometimes, when the poor cannot help themselves, he sends retribution to those who have caused them hell on earth.

      Dear Ekenny, careful who you write for!!

      • William Norris

        Ibori was a thief and had a clear record to show it decades before becoming a politician in Nigeria.

        If Allison Madueke is a thief, what are Indimi, Alakija, the Bayeros, Danjuma and other oil block owners in Nigeria? That Buhari’s daughter just got married to one of Indimi’s sons is all the evidence needed to gain some insight into the REAL corruption that’s going on in Nigeria.

        Allison Madueke has not been proven guilty of anything, in fact by my assessment, all this rigmarole is payback for her trying to empower Ijaw people in particular and Nigerians in general as top level players in the oil & gas sector. The UK has always clearly favored Northern and Islamic elites as overseers of their Nigerian colony.

        • Michael Kadiri SocioPolitical

          lol
          An interesting angle.
          The people who welcomed James back from doing his time are arguably his victims – stockholm syndrome if you will.
          Still does not make it right that those who are meant to protect you – your own kith and kin, steal from you and somehow convince you to call them heroes – a very perplexing conundrum.
          Yes Mrs Madueke empowered a few young Nigerian business men achieve incredible wealth from the business – but that was never her specific mandate. Even if you want to say that the oil belongs to the people of the NIger Delta, when are they going to get paid? Their greatest enemy is not the British, the Northerners or anyone else. It is their brothers and sisters who are meant to look out for them, but become wealthy beyond dreams at their expense. Not fair!!!
          Yes of course, if you seek the proof of conviction in a court of law which we must do, then she has not been found guilty, but you and I know the truth. At the end of the day, we all have to subscribe to the rule of law and whilst it is annoying, we must not say because Peter stole, Paul can still too (apologies to P squared) – as they say, na whom dem catch, na im be thief). It may serve to say that an ijaw woman can’t steal what is hers in the first place – but bro, what about the rest?

          • William Norris

            The rule of law…depends on what law you’re on about.

            The Ijaw had laws before Nigeria and I’m sure it didn’t allow for the theft and exploitation of their natural resources for the benefit of other tribes.

            Your superficial morality isn’t suited to the Nigeria Problem but I’m sure as long as the petro-dollars continue to flow, the majority will always uphold the sanctity of Nigerian Law.

            Black Africans….a lost people.

        • Orphic

          Which Nigerian public servant turned politician does not have a ‘clear record’ of crime? Do you think engaging in politics is cheap? Most Nigerian politicians are former civil servants, military, customs, university lecturers and so on. How did they fund their political careers?
          Nigeria would never be free of corruption until it reduces the importance of the state in the economy. As long as the state has all the money, there always will be corruption.
          You’re right that Madueke is a scape goat, a totem that can be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. She is the lynch victim of a baying mob who are no better – if given the opportunity, than she is.

        • Omooluwa

          See your line of argument. So Dieziani is the same as Ijaw people. Why did she not invest those looted fund in Ijaw land. People like you will borrow data to support a thief on the internet because he/she is from your tribe. Suffering and smiling, that’s what you are.

          • William Norris

            I’m not an Ijaw. My views have a far deeper basis than most people are willing to even think about.

            Every and I mean EVERY SINGLE ONE, is a thief, or more accurately, a 2nd degree thief.

            I’ve repeated this many a time and here goes – CORRUPTION IS NOT THE MAJOR PROBLEM OF NIGERIA. What Nigeria needs is free markets and property rights based on precolonial tribal laws.

    • Omooluwa

      You are one of the accomplices of our treasury looters. So it is Buhari again in UK? Your shallow brain will end up destroying you. Ethnic bigot that’s what you are.

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  • remm ieet

    This is precisely how we lose our money to Britain and other tax havens. How I wish black people will invest more in black lives.

    • William Norris

      It’s not your money….unless you’re a native of the oil producing communities.

  • Biafra Bueze

    The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) is EVIL!!! how many Hausa-Fulani men and wemen has stolen biafran money in UK??? Even Buhari,has Biafran stolen money there.

    The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), and their Evil Islamic Nigeria, prosecute Biafrans but hind Hausa-Fulani

    • Ismail Musa

      Do not allow tribal and religion sentiment to over shadow your reasoning. We are expected to be rational in our actions and speeches. I stand with one Nigeria.

      • Jon West

        You can stand with anything you like. The rest of us Stand with justice and equity. However, I do not blame you, since you are obviously a beneficiary of JAMB 30% pass mark and 1% score in Common Entrance examinations. Let’s see how the future and the unintended consequences pan out.

        • Ismail Musa

          If i were the President I would have allowed the Biafrans out of Nigeria for a long time because they tarnish our image internationally with their criminal activities in desperation for being rich.

          • Jon West

            You are quite right my dear Sahelian rag Head. At the same time you should also give the Boko Haram vermin their Caliphate , so that they can burnish your fantastic image in the global community with their serial murders, kidnappings, mayhem, rape and abductions. The sahelian rag Head is the bane of Nigeria’s development and good global image, but , like all idiotic peoples, they are obsessed with demonising their intellectual, social and economic superiors. To hell with Nigeria!!

        • Ismail Musa

          I graduated with one of the best results you and your entire family can never achieve. So do not associate me with the 30% JAMB score.

          • Jon West

            Congratulations and apologies. I forgot you graduated with a Pass degree from the University of Maiuguri, the equivalent of first year in primary school, during my children’s school years.For a Sahelian rag Head, this is quite an achievement. To hell with Nigeria that produces garbage like you people!!