Former Minister of Petroleum Dan Etete
laundered hundreds of millions of dollars he extorted from oil
companies in a complex web that took investigators years to untangle.
Saharareporters
has obtained documents that reveal in painstaking detail how Mr. Etete
and his main accomplice, Richard Granier-Deferre, executed a series of
financial maneuvers that netted them hundreds of millions of dollars.
Mr.
Etete began his extensive criminal enterprise shortly after the now
deceased military dictator, General Sani Abacha, appointed him Minister
of Petroleum on March 20, 1995. His activities as minister came into
focus when President Olusegun Obasanjo assumed office and filed a
complaint with international financial review agencies asking for help
in tracing over $386 million that disappeared from the Central Bank of
Nigeria from 1994 to 1998. The complaint also noted that another $800
million dollars was missing, with members of the Abacha family strongly
believed to have profited from these funds.
In the course of the
investigation, millions of dollars in Switzerland, France, Gibraltar and
several other tax havens where the world’s biggest money launderers
stash their loot were traced to Dan Etete. The investigators first
discovered that ADDAX, a company based in the British Virgin Islands and
managed by Richard Grainer-Deferre, was used to funnel 1.9 million
British pounds sterling and $385 million dollars into bank accounts
owned by General Abacha and members of his family. Further investigation
linked Mr. Grainer-Deferre to accounts opened in Switzerland for Dan
Etete and his brother, Bukazi Etete. Using “forensic” tools for
detecting criminal movement of cash, investigators also uncovered other
accounts that Richard Grainer-Deferre opened for Mr. Etete using the
alias of Omoni Amafega for the former Petroleum minister.
Mr.
Grainer-Deferre had founded ADDAX for the purpose of doing business with
oil-producing countries. ADDAX then established numerous offshore
subsidiaries in countries that had light tax burdens. Its representative
in Nigeria, Mr. Jean-Pierre Decker, told investigators that when Dan
Etete assumed office as the minister of petroleum, oil companies doing
business in Nigeria were expected to give money to Mr. Etete in order
for their business to thrive. “It was a generalized racket from which it
was impossible to obtain a concession if this type of commission was
not paid,” he said. “The company that paid the most commissions to the
decision maker could find itself receiving the contract even though its
offer was not objectively the best.”
Mr. Richard Granier-Deferre
said his company paid Dan Etete over $10 million in hidden commissions
to obtain petroleum contracts. “This was a general practice,” he stated.
Mr.
Vermeulen, the director-general of ELF TOTAL FINA, Mr. Gavalda,
director of ELF Africa, and Mr. Viaud, the director-general of ELF
Nigeria all testified that their company paid $20 million to Dan Etete’s
account in Credit Agricole Indosuez in Gibraltar in May of 1998 to
renew four operating licenses.
“This payment of $20 million dollars was imposed on us by the Petroleum Minister,” said Mr. Vermeulen.
Mr.
Gavalda said that ELF could not get around Mr. Etete’s blackmail
schemes. “It was necessary to pay because our situation was becoming
untenable,” he said.
In his testimony, Mr. Viaud said that Mr.
Etete personally passed on the details of the bank account where the
corporate bribes were paid into.
Mr. Grainer-Deferre used his
contacts in banks in Geneva and Paris to open accounts for Dan Etete and
the Abacha family. Also, when given instructions by Mr. Etete, he moved
funds from one bank to another for the former minister. The primary
route was first to Bukasi Etete, Dan Etete’s brother’s account in
Switzerland. From there the money was moved to Omoni Amafegha’s account,
which was Dan Etete’s alias.
Through these accounts, Mr.
Grainer-Deferre managed oil companies’ bribe money for Dan Etete. With a
power of attorney granted him, Mr. Grainer-Deferre moved money around
for Dan Etete. He used part of the slush funds to buy real estate for
Mr. Etete in France. He also purchased high-priced art and antiquities
for the grasping former minister. As investigators began to close in on
Dan Etete’s money in Switzerland and France, the former minister ordered
his accomplice to move the money to accounts in Lebanon, Monaco and
Gibraltar.When a particular bank refused to receive further funds from
Nigeria in this manner, Mr. Grainer-Deferre approached another bank
manager friend of his and opened another account. He used this maneuver
when Banque Constant was facing international scrutiny triggered by
money transfers for Dan Etete. Mr. Grainer-Deferre contacted a manager
he knew at Banque Hoffman where he opened another account for his
money-guzzling Nigerian principal.
In August 29, 1997, Banque
Hoffman decided not to keep Dan Etete’s money any longer. Mr. Richard
Grainer-Deferre contacted Mr. Bovay, a manager at Credit Agricole
Indosuez Geneva, and opened an account in the name of Moncaster
Associates of British Virgin Island with Omoni Amafegba (a mask for Mr.
Dan Etete) as the sole beneficiary.
The money laundering circuit
involved institutions or personalities from Nigeria, Switzerland,
Gibraltar and Lebanon. Some of the origins of the funds transferred to
these accounts could not be traced by investigators.
Between
February 4, 1999 and May 30, 2001, over 96 withdrawal transactions were
carried out in France by Dan Etete himself or Eric Ruellan or Marc
Daubrey who worked for him. More than 109 million francs was taken out
in 40 transactions. Marc Daubrey told investigators that he cashed
checks needed by Dan Etete when he bought a town house in Neuilly sur
Seiene and offices in Paris. Mr. Daubrey also used his personal account
to transfer $25,000 when Dan Etete wanted to buy his Mercedes.
On
March 15, 2000, Dan Etete bought a house in Boulay Morin, Eure, for 7.5
million francs and resold it on December 6, 2002 for 657,345 Euros. Dan
Etete also purchased 6.3 million francs worth of furniture for his
office at 11 Boulevard de la Tour Maubourg. He once owned two boats, the
14.33 meter twin-motor speedboat called the “N’Gozic” and the 27.40
meter-long “Spirit of Ashanti,” built in 1998.
On November 27,
2001, the Tracfin money laundering prevention department identified over
40 million francs in funding transferred to Mr. Etete between July 1999
and May 2000 by Banque de Gastion Privee Indosuez (BGPI), a subsidiary
of Credit Agricole Indosuez.
On July 4, 2002, investigators
searched the head office of Dan Etete’s private liability company, SARL
on 11 Boulevard de la Tour Maubourg, Paris. Several documents were
seized. Some of the documents showed that Dan Etete, alias Mr. Omoni
Amafegha, owned real estate holdings worth over 50 million francs.
In
his defense, Dan Etete claimed that payments made to him were
well-established practice in the petroleum sector in Nigeria called
“sponsor’s fee.” He said such payments “existed for decades before I
took over my position as Minister of Petroleum Resources… a practice
that continued after I ceased to be Minister of Petroleum Resources and
which continues today.”
Mr. Etete told investigators that he was
one of the largest ship-owners in Nigeria. He stated that corruption
accusations against him were initiated by Olusegun Obasanjo in an effort
to deprive him of the oil block number 245 which Gen. Abacha awarded to
his Malabu Oil and Gas LTD.
Nigeria was a civil party in the French case against Dan Etete. Nigeria was represented by Marc Bensimhon and Amale Kenbib.
In
a judgment delivered on September 17, 2007, the court in Paris found
Dan Etete guilty of aggravated money laundering, defined as the habitual
assistance with a transaction for investment, concealment or conversion
of the proceeds of a crime. The court sentenced Dan Etete to 3 years
imprisonment and ordered him to pay a fine of 300,000 Euros. The court
also ordered Dan Etete to pay to the Federal Government of Nigeria the
sum of 150,000 Euros as “smart” money and an additional 20,000 Euros
under Article 475-1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
“It is
evident that Dan Etete’s act, consisting of investing improper funds in
various countries… has created, by its nature and its impact, an actual
loss in the form of a non-pecuniary loss suffered by the Nigerian
State,” the judgment said.
In March 2009, Dan Etete’s appeal of
the judgment was overruled. A French appeal court reaffirmed Dan Etete’s
money laundering conviction and fined him a sum of $10.5 million.
Ironically,
four years after Mr. Etete’s conviction, President Goodluck Jonathan
discreetly approved the transfer of $1.1 billion (N155 billion naira) to
the London account of Dan Etete’s company, Malabu Oil. The president
took the decision on April 29, 2011, a day before Ms. Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala assumed office as the minister of finance. The money came
from funds paid to the Federal Government by two multinational
companies, Nigeria Agip Exploration Limited and Shell Nigeria as part of
the settlement of the Malabu oil block case between the Federal
Government, Malabu and the two multinational oil companies.
Investigation
by SaharaReporters showed that, as soon as the $1.1 billion was posted
to Malabu Oil and Gas London account, it was distributed to the accounts
of business associates and cronies of government officials. One of the
beneficiaries was a man named Abubakar Aliyu, an individual with close
links to President Jonathan.
Mr. Aliyu received $532 (N81 billion)
through various companies he owned. Aliyu, notorious for shady deals,
has long established business ties to Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the
convicted former governor of Bayelsa state who was recently pardoned by
President Jonathan. Mr. Aliyu was also at the center of a NITEL land
deal. The shady businessman had bought a parcel of land from the
Nigerian government for N1 billion and sold the same land to the Central
Bank of Nigeria for N21 billion. Aliyu, long linked with late President
Musa Yar’Adua and President Jonathan, is known in Abuja circles as a
deal broker who has perfected the art of sharing the loot with
government officials who help facilitate his numerous astonishing deals.
The
EFCC also investigated the $1.1 billion dollar Malabu Oil deal. The
anti-corruption agency called the deal fraudulent. The EFCC then
concluded that the funds were transferred to accounts owned by “real and
artificial persons” without any clear validation of the job they did to
deserve huge payments. According to SaharaReporters investigation, the
EFCC inquiry died as soon as the Presidency got wind of it.
Dan
Etete formed and registered Malabu Oil and Gas LTD on April 24, 1998
while serving as Petroleum minister. The company initially had three
shareholders, Mohammed Sani Abacha (a son of the late Sani Abacha),
Kweku Amafagha (another version of Dan Etete’s alias) and Hassan Hindu
(wife of Hassan Lawal, a former Nigerian High Commissioner to the UK).
Five days after the company was formed, military dictator, Sani Abacha,
awarded it two lucrative oil blocks, OPL 245 and OPL 214.
