Former Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Oceanic Bank, Mrs. Cecilia Ibru is again in trouble as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has traced 61 assets to her in far away United Arab Emirates (Dubai) in the agency’s ongoing tracking of looted funds.
Cecilia Ibru
According to a fact-sheet obtained: “About 61 assets were traced to Mrs. Ibru in Dubai (UAE). And from the information from AMCON, 41 of the assets were shops, 16 were other types of houses/mansions and four park towers. Some of the towers (A2005, A2008,A 2203) have been linked with two persons.”
“While one of the park towers was paid for, three others had not been fully paid for but they have been de registered. Due to non-payment of full purchase price, a Dubai firm, DAMAC, has refused to refund the deposits. “A registered Nigerian company with one banker as alter ego, was engaged by AMCON in June 2011 to provide legal services for the sale of the assets.”
“A UK-based lawyer was given the power of attorney which was notarised in Dubai. Findings indicated that the attorney engaged allegedly received over $7million but about $4,522,413.20 remained unaccounted for. “The EFCC detectives discovered that AMCON only received $3,278,238.69 from the proceeds of the sale of the assets.”
“The banker was contacted via his Nigerian mobile line but he refused to honour the invitation. An invitation letter was served on his office but he has not responded.”
However, the EFCC disclosed that: “Investigation showed that some of the proceeds of the sales were wired from Dubai into the accounts of some individuals and companies. The EFCC team has interacted with four officials of AMCON including a former staff, the ex-Head of the transactions, who is now with a bank.”
“More officials of some banks have been invited to come and give us information on third party accounts where the proceeds were deposited.” The EFCC said it had been trying to prevail on Williams to account for the sale of the 61 properties.”
It would be recalled that Justice Daniel Abutu of the Federal High Court in Lagos on October 9, 2010 sentenced Mrs. Ibru to 18 months imprisonment. He ordered her to forfeit N191billion worth of assets to the Federal Government through AMCON. The assets to forfeit include properties in Nigeria, United States of America, and Dubai.
She was also ordered to forfeit shares in over 100 firms both listed and unlisted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).