Jonathan and Dan Etete implicated in one of the biggest embezzlement scandals in the history of the oil sector.



Shell Knew

Emails show senior executives at world’s fifth largest company knowingly took part in a vast bribery scheme that robbed the Nigerian people of $1.1billion.

It’s one of the biggest corruption scandals in the history of the oil sector – and this is the biggest development so far.

Damning new evidence shows oil giant Shell took part in a vast bribery scheme that robbed the Nigerian people of over a billion dollars.

Internal Shell emails seen by Finance Uncovered and Global Witness show how the world’s fifth biggest company took part in a scheme which deprived Nigeria and its people of $1.1 billion in a murky deal for access to one of Africa’s most valuable oil blocks, known as OPL 245.

For years, Shell has denied it did anything wrong, but today’s emails show they knew the money would be diverted to private hands, and they went ahead with the deal anyway.

This is devastating for the people of Nigeria. Right now five million of them face starvation. The money paid for the block equates to one and a half times what the UN says is needed to respond to the current famine crisis. But the Nigerian people saw none of the benefits.

What the leaked emails show

The emails we have published today show senior executives knew the massive payment for the oil block would go to Dan Etete – a convicted money launderer and former Nigerian oil minister. He spent some of it on a private jet, armoured cars, and shotguns.

The emails also show Shell’s top brass were told that money was likely to flow to some of the most powerful people in the country, including then President Goodluck Jonathan.

He spoke to Mrs E this morning. She says E claims he will only get 300m we offering—rest goes in paying people off. - Shell Executive
and former MI6 agent John Copleston in a leaked email to Shell Africa executives. “E” is understood to be Dan Etete.

Shell portrays itself as an oil company that does good. Yet our investigation reveals a story of hypocrisy and deception, and finds the company’s most senior bosses depriving Nigeria of life-saving funds by going ahead with a dodgy deal that they knew was a vast bribery scheme.

For the full story of Shell, the convicted money launderer, and Nigeria’s missing billion, download the full investigation (pdf).

Background: the OPL 245 deal

In 2011, Shell and the Italian oil company Eni paid $1.1. billion in a murky deal for this lucrative asset located off the coast of Nigeria. After a lengthy investigation, Global Witness tracked down documents showing that this money didn’t go to benefit the Nigerian people as it should have done. Instead it went to convicted money launderer and former oil Minister, Dan Etete, who had awarded himself ownership of the block in 1998 via a company he secretly owned, Malabu Oil and Gas.

For six years, Shell has denied it did anything wrong, and said it only dealt with the Nigerian government in securing rights to the block. This latest investigation shows that Shell’s senior executives knew where the money was really going. See the evidence and get the full story:
https://www.globalwitness.org/documents/18884/OilBriefing_WIP9_lowres_with_links.pdf

Help us expose the story
Only by exposing the truth can we bring Shell to justice and stop oil companies robbing people of what’s rightfully theirs. Please help by sharing the story:
https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/oil-gas-and-mining/shell-knew/

Lalasticlala

Leaked Records Show Shell’s Complicity in Massive Oil Corruption Scandal
Shell CEO Ben van Beurden picked up the phone and called his chief financial officer hours after Dutch police raided his offices. “I trust you have been informed about what happened at the office,” van Beurden said to CFO Simon Henry on the phone on February 17 last year. “So it looks as if they have some form of coordination between the Italian prosecutor, possibly … with a link into the [U.S. Department of Justice], but we’re not sure yet,” van Beurden said, not knowing authorities were listening in on the other end of the line.

His suspicions were right, and their subsequent conversation sheds light on Shell’s complicity in one of the largest corruption scandals in Big Oil’s history — after the company vigorously denied any role in it for years.

That early morning February raid centered on an oil deal Shell and Italian oil giant Eni struck with Nigeria. They paid the Nigerian government $1.3 billion in 2011 for rights to a giant oil field off the Nigerian coast. After the deal was struck, most of that money mysteriously went missing from public coffers.

New legal filings, emails, and recorded phone conversations reviewed by Foreign Policy showed top Shell executives played a hand in the huge corruption scheme, which reached the highest echelons of the government. The phone recordings and documents from European authorities were obtained by anti-corruption watchdogs Global Witness and Finance Uncovered. Buzzfeed and Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Or first broke the story.

The new revelations could throw Shell into a world of legal trouble. They also shed light on the shadowy world of oil deals, and how far Shell was willing to go to nab their share of the oil field, known as OPL 245, through a network that spanned former British spies and corrupt Nigerian officials. The tendrils of the scandal reached the highest echelons of the Nigerian government, including former President Goodluck Jonathan.

The latest developments come hot on the heels of the United States repealing an anti-corruption rules for extractive industry companies like Shell, a move Big Oil widely lauded. It also illustrates how resource-rich countries like Nigeria often fall victim to the “resource curse” – where corrupt officials steal the revenue from selling off natural resources, keeping the masses mired in poverty.

Each time I remember of being a Nigerian I start thinking of when to die.

One of Africa’s largest petro-states, Nigeria is ranked 136 out of 176 countries in corruption by anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International. Meanwhile, famine spurred by the Boko Haram militant insurgency in the country’s north, threatens millions of Nigerians, including some 500,000 children. The money paid by Shell and Eni for the OPL 245 field is about 1.5 times what the U.N. says is needed to resolve the famine crisis.

The deal centered around former Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete. While serving as oil minister, Etete secretly acquired rights to OPL 245 through a shadowy front company called Malabu, which later funneled over $1 billion of the deal away from the Nigerian people and directly into the pockets of senior Nigerian officials. (Etete was later convicted in a Nigerian court on a separate money laundering probe.)

Van Beurden suspected the Dutch police must have found some dirt in the records their raids obtained. “There was apparently some loose chatter…particularly the people that we hired from MI6 who, er, must have said things like, ‘Well, yeah, you know, I wonder who gets a pay-off here and whatever,’” he said, referring to former British intelligence operatives Shell hired to help navigate the seedy world of West African oil politicking. But it wasn’t just “loose chatter.”

Senior Shell employees openly discussed in email how they knew over $1 billion of their money would go to Etete and others in political kickbacks, according to email records. The company decided to move forward with the deal anyway, denying for years up to this point its employees did anything wrong and claiming it only knew it was paying the Nigerian government.

One email from Shell official Guy Colegate to colleagues in March, 2010 sums it up: “Etete can smell the money,” Colegate wrote. “If, at nearly 70 years old he does turn his nose up at 1.2 bill he is completely certifiable…but I think he knows its [sic] his for the taking. I don’t think he will push it away,” he wrote. That email was forwarded to then-Shell CEO Peter Voser, one of the world’s most powerful oil execs at the time. No records available show he informed authorities or stood in the way of the deal.

Another Shell advisor, former British intelligence service official John Copleston, wrote about Etete’s graft plan to senior Shell executives in 2009 as they began laying out various deals for a share of the oil field. “E[tete] claims he will only get 40m of the 300m we offering-rest goes in paying people off,” Copleston wrote.

For Shell, the stakes couldn’t have been higher: OPL 245, one of Africa’s most valuable oil fields, contains an estimated nine billion barrels of untapped oil, worth nearly $500 billion even with today’s bargain bin oil prices. Its eventual purchase boosted the world’s fifth-largest company’s proven reserves by a third (proven reserves are a key statistic for shareholders).

The field has been at the center of legal battles since 1998, when Etete first acquired rights to it through his front company. Months before it finally sealed the deal in 2011, Shell had to pay $30 million in a separate settlement on bribery charges in Nigeria.

Now the Anglo-Dutch oil giant was in the lurch once again. “This dawn raid is, I won’t say premature, but it’s, we were not, we hadn’t concluded our own work,” van Beurden said, referring to an internal Shell investigation. They then mulled whether they should inform the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of the predawn raid, but opted against it because it would be “share price sensitive.”

“At this point in time, everything seems to be share price sensitive,” Henry says on the phone, chuckling.

Shell denied any knowledge of improper payments to Malabu or others up to Sunday. “It is Shell’s position that none of those payments were made with its knowledge,” Shell said in a statement Sunday.

On Monday, after Global Witness issued a new report outlining the findings of the leaked documents, a Shell spokesman appeared to walk back that position in an email statement to FP.

“Over time, it became clear to us that Etete was involved in Malabu and that the only way to resolve the impasse through a negotiated settlement was to engage with Etete and Malabu, whether we liked it or not,” the spokesman said. He added, “we believe that the settlement was a fully legal transaction.” Shell did not dispute the veracity of the of the leaked documents.

Italian prosecutors beg to differ. According to documents from prosecutor’s office in Milan made public, here’s who got what in the pay-off:

Nigerian businessman Aliyu Abubakar withdrew $54,418,000 in cash.
$466,065,965.44 withdrawn in cash and subsequently funneled to government officials including President Goodluck Jonathan, Attorney General
Mohammed Bello Adoke, Minister of Petroleum Diezani Alison-Madueke, Minister of Defence and former National Security Advisor Aliyu Gusau.
$10,026,280 to former Attorney General Christopher Adebayo Ojo
$11,465,000 paid to former Senator Ikechukwu Obiorah

Eni officials also received funds in retrocession (in essence, reimbursement for multiple layers of insurance after a deal goes through). One, Chief Development — Operations & Technology Officer Roberto Casula, received $50 million delivered in cash.

In Italy, prosecutors have recommended Casula and Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi stand trial in the corruption case. The Eni board issued a statement saying they retained “total confidence” in Descalzi. Eni also released a statement saying it was complying with authorities but denied any wrongdoing. Representatives of Voser, Etete, and Jonathan haven’t yet issued any statements about the revelations.




http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/11/emails-show-shells-complicity-in-biggest-oil-corruption-scandal-in-history-nigeria-resource-curse-etete-eni/

Distractions

littlewonders:
Distractions

You do know this investigation was a joint investigation by the italian govt, the Dutch police, the british and the Americans right?

Statsocial, dominique, Seun, Mynd44, lalasticlala FP please.

davidif:


You do know this investigation was a joint investigation by the italian govt, the Dutch police, the british and the Americans right?

In as much as the investigation rolled off stones, its just another way of distracting Nigerians from issues that concern our unity and health. I visit hospitals almost everyday and see the increasing rate of cervical cancer on children which I'm sure most parents are not cognizance of. The pollution rate of incomplete combustion taking over our endocrine glands of which has practically alter our body system yet no awareness of cognitive measures to address this issues. This will tell how adamant they care less towards Nigerians health.


Rather, they keep on bringing distractions which are of less concern to the public from certicate forgery, PDP and APC qualms, Birthdays, phony hopes, and yet no one summons issues on this area of health(we only watch on TV and read on News: that's where it ends) to help save lives of the masses.

Now, another tales to cause polite distraction has resurfaced. I *dislike* my leaders. If I have my way I'll organise a death romp for all of them without sparing not even a councillor.

littlewonders:



In as much as the investigation rolled off stones, its just another way of distracting Nigerians from issues that concern our unity and health. I visit hospitals almost everyday and see the increasing rate of cervical cancer on children which I'm sure most parents are not cognizance of. The pollution rate of incomplete combustion taking over our endocrine glands of which has practically alter our body system yet no awareness of cognitive measures to address this issues. This will one tell how adamant they care less of Nigerians health.


Rather they keep on bringing distractions which are of less concern to the public from certicate forgery, PDP and APC qualms, Birthdays, phony hopes, and yet no one summons issues on this area of health(we only watch on TV and read on News: that's where it ends) to help save lives of the masses.

Now, another tales to cause polite distraction has resurfaced. I *dislike* my leaders. If I have my way I'll organise a death romp for all of them without sparing not even a councillor.

What are you talking about?? Who is distracting who? am i the one distracting people by posting this on here? Are the Europeans who did the investigation distracting anyone by publicizing their findings distracting anyone? Please tell me who is distracting whom?
This is about transparency man.

davidif:


What are you talking about?? Who is distracting who? am i the one distracting people by posting this on here? Are the Europeans who did the investigation distracting anyone by publicizing their findings distracting anyone? Please tell me who is distracting whom?

You're not the one distracting anybody, your post will only make us find focus of our energy at morning.

Shell was complicit in a billion-dollar corruption scandal for a lucrative Nigerian oilfield
Royal Dutch Shell’s checkered history while operating in Nigeria has taken another bad turn.

The oil giant is mired in a billion-dollar bribery scandal over its 2011 acquisition of OPL 245, a vast undeveloped but lucrative Nigerian oilfield off the coast of the Niger Delta. Shell first acquired a stake in the oilfield back in 2001 alongside Malabu, a company allegedly controlled by Dan Etete, Nigeria’s oil minister between 1995 and 1998. Etete is believed to have acquired the rights to the oilfield under questionable circumstances while serving as minister. OPL245 is valued at up to $500 billion by some estimates.

After two decades of legal wrangling over ownership of the oilfield, in 2011, Shell, in collaboration with Italian oil company ENI, paid the Nigerian government $1.3 billion to acquire OPL 245. But that money never went into the public trust, as it should have. Instead, nearly all of it went to Etete who was convicted of money laundering in France in 2007. Through Etete, much of the money is believed to have ended up being shared by high-ranking Nigerian government officials in a series of political kickbacks with Shell fully aware.

Shell initially denied knowledge of payments made to Malabu, Etete and any other Nigerian officials, saying that its dealings with regard to the acquisition of OPL 245 were legal and that none of the questionable payments “were made with its knowledge, authorization or on its behalf.” But a trove of emails published by anti-corruption charities, Global Witness and Finance Uncovered, suggest that is not the case. Indeed, the emails show “evidence” of Shell’s senior employees “knowingly participating in a vast bribery scheme,” according to Global Witness.

The emails show correspondence between senior Shell officials acknowledging the possibility that almost all the money paid for OPL 245 could be passed to government officials, through Etete, in underhanded deals. Following the published emails, in a reversal of prior denials, Shell has now admitted that it engaged with Etete during negotiations to acquire OPL 245. ENI is yet to respond to Quartz’s email queries on whether any of its officials were aware of the possibility that the money it paid for OPL 245 was to be passed on as kickbacks.

The stink of the scandal reached all the way to the presidency with Goodluck Jonathan, the then-president, named as a beneficiary in documents from Italian prosecutors. Jonathan is said to have received nearly $500 million, which was split with other high ranking members of his administration, including Diezani Alison-Madueke, his embattled former minister of petroleum. For his part, Jonathan has denied any wrongdoing, claiming the allegations are sponsored by people threatened by his “continuously rising profile in the international community.” Italian prosecutors have recommended that Claudio Descalzi, ENI CEO, stand trial for corruption.

Shell took the risk of getting caught up in such a murky deal because of the value of the asset at stake. OPL245 is one of Africa’s largest undeveloped oilfield and is estimated to hold around nine billion barrels of oil. At current market prices, its value is pegged at nearly $500 billion. The oilfield could also see Shell’s global “proven oil reserves” increase by a third, according to Global Witness.

(contd below)

But while the deal clearly enhances Shell, it’s at the detriment of Nigerians. For decades, government officials have been accused of flitting away the country’s oil wealth and pocketing large sums of cash through corrupt dealings. The sale of OPL 245, for only snippet of its actual value—most of which went into private pockets—captures that sentiment.

Active in Nigeria since the 1950s, the latest scandal does nothing to boost Shell’s battered reputation among locals, particularly in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The company’s fractious relationship with the region is linked to the 1995 executions of nine Niger Delta leaders, including popular activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa. Shell has been accused of collaborating with the Nigerian government in the executions and, in 2009, the company agreed to pay $15.5 million as compensation to affected families.

The company is also notorious for the adverse environmental impact of its work in the Niger Delta. Severe oil spills have resulted in large-scale devastation and pollution which will likely take decades to clean up. In one of such cases, Bodo, a community in Niger Delta, received a $83 million payment from the oil giant in what was the largest ever out-of-court oil spill-related settlement in Nigeria.

https://qz.com/955409/shell-knew-about-opl245-bribes-to-etetes-malabu-and-other-nigerian-politicians-show-emails/

I have nothing to say. If GEJ partook in this jamboree then it is unfortunate.

Wow

So was OBJ, Atiku, Abdulsalami, IBB, same Dan Etete and other prominet Nigerian were implicated in the Haliburton scandal that happens to be the biggest corruption scandal then.
Corruption and indiscipline is woven right in our fabric, flows in our veins and artries. Wont be suprised that by the time whole scandal is uraveled, even those close to the present day government will be involved.

When the President keeps blaming the Jonathan Administration for our present state,many people will say he should shut up and fix the economy. It is now very evident that the man Jonathan is truly responsible for our present state of recession.

If not that those boiz in the creeks will rise up again, I would have suggested the EFCC arrest Me Jonathan with immediate effect.

Meanwhile Dan Etete should be picked up immediately.