A Nigerian court has upheld the final forfeiture of $13 million linked to Lagos socialite Aisha Achimugu and her company, Oceangate Engineering Oil & Gas Ltd., ordering the money to be permanently handed to the Federal Government.<\/p>\n
Delivering judgment in Abuja, Justice Emeka Nwite said the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) successfully proved that the foreign currency was connected to fraud and unlawful activity.<\/p>\n
The case was brought after the court initially granted an interim order forfeiting the funds. In that earlier stage, the judge directed the EFCC to publish the order in a national newspaper and allow interested parties to show why the money should not be finally forfeited.<\/p>\n
In the final ruling, the court dismissed Oceangate\u2019s arguments that the $13 million was made up of legitimate earnings and gifts received by the company\u2019s group chief executive officer. The judge held that Oceangate failed to clearly explain how it obtained and held the money, and also failed to establish evidence of genuine ownership.<\/p>\n
The judgment noted that no individuals who allegedly made the large gifts to Achimugu were called to testify. It also criticised the company for not showing the business activities that generated the funds and for not providing proof of payments from customers.<\/p>\n
EFCC investigators told the court that Oceangate participated in bids for oil blocks and was required to make payments in dollars. The EFCC alleged that $13 million was retained and transferred in ways that suggested it was proceeds of unlawful activity, including the use of cash-collection arrangements involving third parties and money converted and moved to meet signature bonus requirements for the oil licenses.<\/p>\n
The court also considered statements by individuals involved in the matter and concluded that the company did not meet the burden required to counter the EFCC\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n
The ruling means the $13 million, previously linked to the company\u2019s payments connected to the oil blocks, will remain forfeited to the Federal Government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Nigerian court has upheld the final forfeiture of $13 million linked to Lagos socialite Aisha Achimugu and her company, Oceangate Engineering Oil & Gas Ltd., ordering the money to be permanently handed to...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10891"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10893,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10891\/revisions\/10893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}