By SaharaReporters, New York
A United Kingdom High Court in London has ordered the former CEO of Intercontinental Bank and pastor of the widely-known Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Erastus Akingbola, to forfeit nearly seventy-five million British pounds to the bank.

Pastor Akingbola was arrested in 2010 after he returned from the UK, to which he had fled after his financial shenanigans were revealed by the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was called in to prosecute such former bank CEOs who were found to have been involved in bank fraud.

According to the UK court judgement obtained by SaharaReporters dated March 24 2011, he will forfeit sums of £8,540,134.58, £68m and £1.3m to Intercontinental Bank. The bank had approached the UK court after it successfully obtained a freezing order against huge sums of monies paid into various shell companies set up by Mr. Akingbola in the Cayman Islands and in which members of his family were beneficiaries.

The fraudulent payments saw Akingbola transferring huge sums of money from Intercontinental bank in 2009. The payments, known as "1st Fuglers Payments", "Tropics Payments" and "2nd Fuglers Payments", together the three payment led to the transfer of a total of £80 Million; monies that were used to purchase expensive properties in the UK and beyond.

Mr. Akingbola siphoned most of the funds in dubious transactions between his shell companies in Nigeria within just six weeks through an illegal shares purchase scheme conducted by some of his companies. Forty-one million pounds (£41m) of the money was looted by Mr. Akingbola in one day alone, on 11 May 2009.

Analysts say Mr. Akingbola's case reflects pervasive greed not only in Nigerian financial institutions, but often in her places of worship, where flamboyant pastors are perennially preaching messages of prosperity. There is also persistent collusion between government and bank officials, one form of which involves governors and ministers transferring key accounts to specific banks with which they have worked out a profitable arrangement. It remains to be seen if RCCG will issue a statement condemning Mr. Akingbola.

Last October, the former Chief Executive Officer of Oceanic Bank, Mrs. Cecilia Ibru, was convicted of bank and securities fraud by the Federal High Court in Lagos, and was stripped of 199 assets and funds worth nearly N200 billion, much of which she had salted away all over the world. On one street alone in the Upper Marlboro area of Maryland, United States, Mrs. Ibru bought at least six palatial homes in 2009, and they were registered either to herself, or to such close relatives as her son, Obaro, her daughter Janet, or her daughter-in-law, Kemi Da silva. Despite the grievous nature of her crimes, however, Mrs. Ibru was sent to jail for only six months. Even that slap on the wrist was "suffered" in the cushy confines of a medical facility that is built like a five-star hotel.

http://www.saharareporters.com/news-page/uk-high-court-orders-rogue-banker-erastus-akingbola-surrender-%C2%A368-million-loot-interconti