Select a region
The seizing of £2m of dirty cash from accounts set up by a Nigerian political and military leader sheds light on just how easy it was to move money into Jersey before regulation.
Jeremiah Timbut Useni first set up an account in Jersey in 1986.
However, he didn’t set up the account himself, he didn’t use his own name, and the bank didn’t ask for any proof of who he was – but back then, they didn’t have to.
On Thursday, Express reported that the Royal Court had seized £1.9m from accounts held by Lt-Gen Useni – who was corrupt former Nigerian leader Sani Abacha’s right-hand man – which it regarded as tainted money.
The judgment reveals just how simple it was for Gen Useni to deposit money in Jersey – before Know Your Customer rules came in and the bank started asking for basic information, which the former government minister, state governor, chairman of the Nigerian Railway Corporation, and head of defence logistics wouldn’t / couldn't provide.
In March 1986, a numbered bank account was opened with ANZ Grindlay’s Bank for ‘Mr Tim Shani’.
‘Mr Shani’ had been introduced to the bank by an existing customer, a man called Selcan Miner, who carried out the initial account opening.
Pictured: General Useni defended the five-year reign of Sani Abacha when he appeared on Nigeria's Arise News programme last year. (YouTube/Arise News)
As the judgment states: “It was possible, at that time, to open a numbered account which replaced the identity of the account holder with a multi-digit number allowing for greater client confidentiality.
“The numbered account (as well as several sub-accounts) was opened.
“As was subsequently discovered, Mr Shani does not exist and the true identity of the accounts is [Gen Useni]”.
In a letter written in 2008, Mr Miner admitted to opening the account for Gen Useni, whom he described as a friend.
As well as including a fictitious name, the account opening form said that the spurious Tim Shani was a Cameroonian national, his occupation was ‘business’ and his permanent address was a property in London, which turned out to be Mr Miner’s London address.
All of this was false.
Because Mr Miner was an existing customer of the bank, he was able to provide a reference for the made-up Mr Shani in order to set up an account, which meant that no further customer due diligence was needed.
With Mr Miner’s reference, therefore, the bank did not need to see any identification documents, supporting evidence or source of wealth information.
The Royal Court said: “As a result, the identity of the account holder was easily disguised and in the view of the Attorney General was, for those that wished to abuse that facility, an ideal vehicle for hiding the proceeds of crime.
“That is precisely what the Attorney General suspects has happened in this case.”
Money was then moved by Gen Ubeni using the fabricated moniker ‘Tim Shani’ several times. Examples of payments into the accounts include:
According to research by the States of Jersey Police, these appeared for the most part to be active construction companies.
However, Gen Ubeni never provided any information to the Court, despite opportunities to do so, about his possible ownership or control of any engineering or construction companies at the relevant time.
Equally, he never explained the source of any of the transfers into the accounts.
Giving another indication of the rudimentary protocols in place at the time, the majority of contacts that Gen Ubeni had with the bank before 2001 was in the form of handwritten transfer requests, which were signed by ‘Mr Shani’.
Things began to unravel for Gen Ubeni in 2001 when the bank – which had been bought by Standard Chartered – started to tighten up its anti-money laundering procedures in line with new legislation in Jersey.
The initial response of the fabricated Mr Shani (aka Gen Ubeni) was to request that the entire balance in his accounts be transferred to bank in Nigeria, which was refused by the Jersey bank on the grounds that the necessary documentation required – including a certified copy of a passport – had not been provided.
At this stage, the police’s Joint Financial Crimes Unit ordered the accounts to be frozen, which is how they remained until the Royal Court this week ordered that they be seized and moved to the Criminal Offences Confiscations Fund.
The case of Lieutenant-General Jeremiah Timbut Useni is a timely reminder that while Jersey may now pitch itself as a highly regulated finance industry free of criminal money, it wasn’t always the case.
Gen Useni (79) was a senior army officer and Minister for the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja during the five-year reign of military dictator Sani Abacha between 1993 and 2018, which ended when Abacha died in mysterious circumstances.
Before that he was the West African country’s Director of Supply and Transport (1975-1980), Chairman of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (1977-1981), Governor of Bendel State (1983-1985), Minister of Transport and Aviation (1985-1987) and Chief of Logistics, Defence Headquarters (1992-1993).
He is said to have been the second most important officer in the Nigerian army under the rule of General Abacha.
The Royal Court noted that, in an online interview published in 2011, Gen Useni expressly denied having any foreign bank account, despite by that stage admitting to Standard Chartered that he was, in fact, Tim Shani.
Pictured: Attorney General Mark Temple.
Attorney General Mark Temple QC, said: "Jersey has robust and effective legislation which in appropriate cases will be used to forfeit monies associated with corruption summarily and ensure that such funds are returned for the benefit of the people who have suffered from its effects.
"I will explore with the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria how to return these forfeited assets to the people of Nigeria.
"However, there is an existing framework for the return of funds to Nigeria linked to the Abacha regime which was successfully established with the Governments of Nigeria and the United States in relation to the return of over $300m of the assets of Doraville Properties Corporation.”
Court battle over $300 million hidden in Jersey by corrupt former Nigerian President (May 2016)
European Court backs Jersey decision in Nigerian money laundering case (July 2016)
Abacha fraud case: US gets involved (February 2017)
Last legal challenge fails in $300m money laundering case (February 2018)
Jersey recovers $267million from Nigerian money laundering case (June 2019)
Corrupt general's $300m loot to benefit Nigeria (February 2020)
Court seizes £2m of dirty money sent to Jersey by Nigerian general (May 2021)
Comments
Comments on this story express the views of the commentator only, not Bailiwick Publishing. We are unable to guarantee the accuracy of any of those comments.