By John Ikani
The US Justice Department has announced the resolution of two civil cases seeking the forfeiture of luxury assets worth over $69 million.
The assets were the proceeds of foreign corruption offenses and were laundered in and through the United States.
Nigerian businessmen Kolawole Akanni Aluko and Olajide Omokore were found to have conspired with others to pay bribes to Nigeria’s former Minister for Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, in return for steering lucrative oil contracts to companies owned by them.
The proceeds of those contracts, totaling more than $100 million, were laundered in and through the United States and used to purchase various assets through shell companies, including luxury real estate in California and New York, as well as a 65-meter superyacht called the Galactica Star.
The Justice Department has recovered roughly $53.1 million in cash and a promissory note with a principal value of $16 million.
The recovered assets constitute the net liquidated value of the defendants’ assets.
The real estate, which was also used as collateral for loans to Aluko and shell companies he controlled, was paid as part of the forfeiture process, and lien holders were reimbursed.
The case was brought under the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, which is led by a team of dedicated prosecutors in the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section in partnership with federal law enforcement agencies.
The initiative seeks to forfeit the proceeds of foreign official corruption and, where appropriate, to use those recovered assets to benefit the people harmed by these acts of corruption and abuse of office.
The FBI’s International Corruption Squad in the Washington Field Office and the IRS-CI investigated the cases, with assistance from the FBI Los Angeles Field Office. Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg of the FBI Washington Field Office, and Chief Jim Lee of the IRS Criminal Investigation made the announcement.
Trial Attorneys Michael W. Khoo and Joshua L. Sohn of the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section prosecuted the cases, with substantial assistance from the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.
