US prosecutors on Friday moved to seize $144m in assets including a 200-foot yacht and a Manhattan condominium one block from Central Park, calling them the fruits of an international bribery scheme that involved the former Nigerian Oil Minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke.
The justice department action targeted Nigeria’s oil man, Mr Kola Aluko’s vessel, Galactica Star, which its builder bills as the “world’s largest fast displacement yacht”, along with condominium units in Manhattan and real estate in Southern California located just three miles from the Pacific Ocean.
From 2011 to 2015, two Nigerian oil men, Kolawole Aluko and Olajide Omokore, alledgedly conspired with others to bribe the country’s minister for petroleum resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, in order to win oil production contracts worth $1.5bn, according to a civil forfeiture complaint. At the time, along with controlling the country’s state-owned oil company, Mrs. Alison-Madueke, also headed the Vienna-based oil cartel, OPEC. Nigeria’s federal high court earlier this year charged her with money laundering and she has previously denied any wrongdoing. After awarding government contracts to shell companies owned by the two men, Mrs. Alison-Madueke — known as “the madam” or “Madam D” — was rewarded with a “lavish lifestyle”, according to the US Department of Justice.
Alison-Madueke has since denied any wrong-doing in her relationship with Kola Aluko and Jide Omokore.
A civil forfeiture complaint is merely an allegation that money or property was involved in or represents the proceeds of a crime. These allegations are not proven until a court awards judgment in favour of the US.
“The United States is not a safe haven for the proceeds of corruption,” said acting assistant attorney-general Kenneth Blanco. “If illicit funds are within the reach of the United States, we will seek to forfeit them and to return them to the victims from whom they were stolen.”