Two weeks after the Sarakis were exposed as owning undeclared offshore assets in violation of Nigeria’s code of conduct regulations, detectives from that country’s FIU asked Mossack Fonseca to furnish them with all documents relating to Sandon Developments Ltd, a firm registered in Seychelles under Mrs Saraki’s name. But when contacted by Mossack Fonseca to provide it with documents that adequately identified her, for onward transfer to Seychelles’ FIU, Mrs. Saraki sent the law firm her British passport and a statement of her Barclay Bank account, which suggested she was trying to show that as a British national, she could not have been in violation of Nigerian law.
Toyin Saraki, wife of Senate President Bukola Saraki, as been caught in another fraudulent activity as she tried to pass herself off as a British citizen in other to shield herself from criminal infraction punishable under the Nigerian law.
According to a report by PremiumTimes, Mrs. Saraki presented herself as a British citizen to operatives of the Seychelles Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) investigating her involvement in multi-million-dollar assets in offshore tax haven linked to the Sarakis.
A 2016 report of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) had indicted the Senate President and his wife of owning undisclosed assists tucked away in faraway Panama with the help of Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider now distressed after the global tax scandal blew open in 2016.
Seychelles FIU is suspicious that Mrs. Saraki might be serving as a front for her husband, who had denied ownership of the multi-million-dollars assets rather claiming that they belonged to his wife.
The report revealed that: “Two weeks after the Sarakis were exposed as owning undeclared offshore assets in violation of Nigeria’s code of conduct regulations, detectives from that country’s FIU asked Mossack Fonseca to furnish them with all documents relating to Sandon Developments Ltd, a firm registered in Seychelles under Mrs Saraki’s name.
“But when contacted by Mossack Fonseca to provide it with documents that adequately identified her, for onward transfer to Seychelles’ FIU, Mrs. Saraki sent the law firm her British passport and a statement of her Barclay Bank account, which suggested she was trying to show that as a British national, she could not have been in violation of Nigerian law.”
Details of the passport she sent to Mossack Fonseca showed that it was issued on January 17, 2007 and would expire on January 17, 2017.
Mrs Saraki registered Sandon Ltd in 2011 and used it to buy a family property at #8 Whittaker Street, Belgravia, London SW1W 8JQ.