A Southwark Crown Court yesterday heard
from a British prosecutor, Sasha Wass, how
convicted former Delta State governor James
Ibori passed himself off to a Swiss private
bank in 2004 as being the owner of an
Insurance coy, half owner of a bank and
owning 30 percent of indigenous oil firm –
Oando, which paid $1.2 million into his
account that year.
The court also heard that PKB Private bank
had in an internal document likened Ibori,
who governed Delta State from 1999 to 2007,
to a scion of the Kennedy dynasty in the
United States.
Ibori was convicted in February 2012 in the
UK after he pleaded guilty to 10 counts of
fraud and money-laundering worth 50
million pounds ($79.5 million).
Prosecutors say his total wealth was likely to
be far greater than that.
Details of Ibori’s assets and how he kept
them from public knowledge through a maze
of shell companies and off shore bank
accounts are being revealed as part of a
three-week confiscation hearing which began
in London on Monday.
Prosecutor Sasha Wass told the court that
while opening an account at Swiss bank, PKB,
through a shell company called Stanhope
Investment, Mr. Ibori told the bank he owns
30 per cent of Oando.
Quoting from internal PKB documents, Ms.
Wass said the former governor presented
himself as the owner of an insurance
company and 50 per cent owner of a Nigerian
Bank.
She said that a total of $1.2 million (N180
million) flowed into the PKB account from
Oando in three instalments that year which
had later been funneled into other accounts
and were part of funds intended for the
purchase of a $20 million (N3 billion) private
jet.
This is contrary to a statement by Oando on
Monday which claimed that Ibori had only an
“insignificant” holding in the firm adding
that it had sold $2.7 million of its foreign
exchange earnings for naira in 2004 to a
company that had later turned out to be
controlled by Ibori; a fact it did not know
that at the time.
It was learnt that following news of Ibori’s
involvement with Oando, its shares dipped
10 per cent at the stock market on Tuesday
and might still suffer more slip ups in the
coming weeks.
Ms. Wass told the court yesterday that
despite his assets being restrained in 2008,
Ibori had after that date continued to live a
lavish lifestyle, travel and pay fees to the
English boarding school where his three
children were being educated.
Coupled with his unenviable track record of
hiding assets, this led to the “irresistible
inference” by investigators that Ibori had
further hidden assets which had not yet been
uncovered, Ms. Wass said, adding that one
option of where these might be, was Oando.
Wass also quoted from an internal PKB
report from 2004 which said Ibori came from
one of a few Nigerian families which had for
decades developed Nigeria’s oil industry.
“We could compare these families with the
Kennedy dynasty which also mixed business
and politics,” the bank document said.
Another excerpt said Ibori was “an
extremely rich man as he was doing a lot of
business before becoming governor”.
Pos


www.informationng.com/2013/09/swiss-bank-document-exposes-iboris-ownership-of-30-per-cent-of-oando-50-per-cent-of-nigerian-bank.html?utm_source=&utm_medium=twitter

If u ask me, I will wish he is gang raped by gays in prison everyday. That might be cruel, but that is how he treated Nigeria.