Gov quizzed in London - Over money laundering

By Tayo Ligali - 23.03.2008

A SERVING governor in one of the south eastern states of the country was quizzed by a team of armed policemen from the Fraud and Money Laundering Special Scotland Yard Squad, on Monday 17 March, 2008 over money laundering.

The governor, Sunday Tribune learnt, jetted out of the country on Friday, 14th March, 2008 with his entourage and checked into Inter-Continental Hotel, Park Lane, Central London under an assumed name.

It was gathered that the governor had a reception for indigenes of his state resident in the country the following day. The reception also had in attendance, the Nigeria Acting High Commissioner and representatives of a foreign company planning to build an oil and gas company in the governor’s state.

The governor was said to have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the representatives of the company at the reception.

The next day, Sunday March 16, the governor paid homage to his people who came calling on him at his hotel room.

He was said to have retired at about 11 p.m, when the last visitor left, only to be woken up early the following morning, Monday, by the men from Scotland Yard.

The security operatives, who, acting on a tip off, searched his hotel room, and documents linking him to a house purchased late last year at the cost of £1.8m in South Kensington, London and another in Atlanta, USA at the cost of N$2.1m. Another document showed that the governor is a co-owner of a company in China.

The police also recovered a sum of £1.2m cash from the room of one of the governor’s aides. The governor and the aide were arrested and taken into custody where they were quizzed.

The governor was released the same day but his aide was released the following day because he had a British passport. The money is still in the possession of the police, pending the end of investigation into the source of the money the man claimed was genuinely earned by him.

It was rumored that the money was brought into London through an agent who uses one of Nigeria’s neighbouring countries diplomatic bag. The agent, Sunday Tribune learnt, was paid 20 per cent of the total money successfully brought into the UK and had been successfully transacting such business in the past.

Sunday Tribune findings revealed that that particular transaction went awry because the governor failed to settle all his accomplices whom he had earlier promised would get their share of the loot.

Our source disclosed that when the governor took possession of the money on Friday night, he handed it over to the aide for keeps.