February 21, 2010
One of Jersey biggest-ever money laundering trials has begun in the Royal Court.The case allegedly involves a former Nigerian president, an intricate plan to sell hundreds of military vehicles to Nigeria at hugely inflated prices and corruption and greed on a massive scale.articleadslinks
As a result, millions of dollars allegedly siphoned from the Nigerian public purse made its way into the Jersey banking system, it is claimed.
Raj Arjandas Bhojwani, an Indian businessman in his early 50s, denies three charges relating to the laundering of US$43.9m – money alleged to be the proceeds of corrupt Nigerian vehicle deals.
Two high-profile Nigerian officials are also alleged to be involved, Crown advocate Matthew Howitt told the court. Those officials, he said, were dictator General Sani Abacha, who ruled Nigeria from 1993 until his death in 1998, and the former defence advisor to the Nigerian permanent mission to the United Nations, Colonel Mohammed Buba Marwa.
Marwa is currently the Nigerian ambassador to the Republic of South Africa, and as well as being a presidential aspirant in the 2007 election, he is expected to make a renewed bid to become a presidential candidate for the 2011 elections. It is claimed that Bjojwani, as part of two separate deals – one in 1996 and one in 1997 – orchestrated and carried out a meticulous plan to siphon off millions of dollars of Nigerian public money for his own use.
He did this, Advocate Jowitt said, by selling military vehicles to Nigeria at vastly inflated prices – some 400 to 500 per cent above their true value – through a front company he had set up. Various other front companies set up by Bhojwani were also used to carry out the deception, the advocate added. The proceeds of the two sales, which amounted to nearly US$178m, were paid into a bank account in the Bank of India in Jersey, it was claimed. More than US$100m of that money was then paid in bribes to General Abacha and Colonel Marwa, who had both been in on the plan from the start, the Crown alleged.
Advocate Jowitt said that the defendant had paid many millions of dollars of kickbacks following the 1996 contract and he had made those transfers from the Bank of India in Jersey.
Following an exposé article in the Financial Times, Bhojwani removed his share of the money from the Jersey banking system, allegedly so as to avoid any investigation or prosecution.
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