Ex-banker jailed in UK over James Ibori loot Published on December 9, 2013 by

A Ghanaian and former Goldman Sachs banker Elias Preko was sentenced to 4-1/2 years in prison by a London court on Monday for laundering $5 million on behalf of James Ibori, the former governor of Nigeria’s oil-producing state of Delta.

Ibori is serving 13 years in a British jail after pleading guilty last year to 10 counts of fraud and money-laundering. He is the most senior Nigerian politician to be held to account for the corruption that has blighted Africa’s most populous country and top oil producer, where the case is being closely watched.

Harvard graduate Preko, 54, became the fifth of Ibori’s associates to be jailed for assisting his corruption after the ex-governor’s wife, mistress, sister and lawyer were all convicted by British courts in previous trials.


Elias Preko: laundered $5million for James Ibori

The cases have been tried in London because some of the money was laundered in Britain and some of the defendants were based there. Attempts by Nigeria’s own anti-corruption agency to prosecute Ibori, dating back to 2007, have foundered.

A jury at London’s Southwark Crown Court unanimously convicted Preko, a Ghanaian national, of two offences of money-laundering between March 2003 and April 2008 when he was arrested.

He was charged with assisting Ibori in channeling stolen money through a web of offshore trusts and shell companies.

Preko had left Goldman Sachs before he committed the offences and the bank is not accused of any wrongdoing. The court heard Preko tried to open accounts on Ibori’s behalf when he still worked there but this was not authorized by the bank.

The Delta governor from 1999 to 2007, Ibori was in his heyday a power broker at the heart of Nigeria’s ruling party. After he left office and lost immunity from prosecution his fortunes ebbed and flowed according to political developments in Abuja until he was extradited from Dubai to Britain in 2011.

“AMOUNTS BEYOND BELIEF”

“The evidence against you in this case was very clear. You knew what Mr. Ibori was doing and you were actively assisting him,” Judge Anthony Pitts told Preko in his sentencing remarks.

“You are a man of considerable ability and intelligence, highly educated, capable of making lots of money perfectly legitimately.”

The court had heard that in a decade at Goldman Sachs, where he was in charge of private clients in sub-Saharan Africa, Preko had made $12 million in salary and received a severance payment of $3 million when he left the bank.

“You had the ability to walk away (from Ibori). You chose to involve yourself with him as a professional man, against the code of upstanding conduct for men in your position,” Pitts said.

The judge noted that the sums Preko had helped launder were “relatively small amounts in a case where the amounts are almost beyond belief”.

Ibori’s total fortune is not known. During his sentencing in April 2012 Pitts put the amount of stolen money covered by his guilty pleas at 50 million pounds ($82 million) but said this may be a “ludicrously low” fraction of his total booty.

In a three-week hearing this year prosecutors sought a court order for the confiscation of 90 million pounds in assets that they said were the proceeds of Ibori’s crimes, but the hearing ended inconclusively and will restart next year

http://pmnewsnigeria.com/2013/12/09/ex-banker-jailed-in-uk-over-james-ibori-loot/

Serves him right

Omo Ghana

K. But please stop jailing them abroad let them see wat corruption does to the country from the grass rot.

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Useless blogger.. Wit there shiit news.. Na the kind of una day make news like BREAKING NEWS; Mandela woke up on memorial day.. My advice to u is Get a life..

ceo4eva: BREAKING NEWS: Jonathan
Snubbed At Mandela's Memorial
https://www.nairaland.com/1550408/breaking-news-jonathan-snubbed-mandelas#20128642

See beef. Ride your time sir, nothing do you. They cant take all the money. Her majestys prisons are alright.

Ibori realy looted Bayelsa state treasury just as d case of Abacha. Africa leaders why cant u learn from Mandela. Mandela rule nd live during our time not a book story.

State pardon awaits Ibori on return.

NOTHING GOOD COMES FROM THE IGBO(IBORI )...
PREKO NA U CAUSE YOUR DOWNFALL BY YOURSELF

Ds is a country dt law is law,and can't run away no matter how highy placed u are.

Ghananians are learning fast

Shame! Shame!! Shame!!!

I wish this could serve as a lesson to others bt i'm afraid,it wont.
Its just that prison over there is better than rich man's house in Nigeria,how i wish Ibori could be brought home to serve his sentence here @kirikiri or alagbon.
Inmates would force him to wash prison's president pants.

kambah:

Ibori realy looted Bayelsa state treasury just as d case of Abacha. Africa leaders why cant u learn from Mandela. Mandela rule nd live during our time not a book story.

/

Here we go!

//

Soo these Ghanians sef dey follow chop our money abi?

GEJ should authorize military strikes for an invasion

We need to Colonize Ghana

kambah:

Ibori realy looted Bayelsa state treasury just as d case of Abacha. Africa leaders why cant u learn from Mandela. Mandela rule nd live during our time not a book story.

Is Mr Ibori a bayelsan?

Please ALAMCO is enough headache don't add IBORI

5.00GP:
NOTHING GOOD COMES FROM THE IGBO(IBORI )...
PREKO NA U CAUSE YOUR DOWNFALL BY YOURSELF

frustrated Nairalander,always looking for who to exchange words with.
Blatant tribalist...any Nigerian that is not hausa or yoruba is Igbo(foolish mentality)
btw,they once said nothing good comes out of Nazareth bt Jesus came from Nazareth.

boooked

Ok

But wait o..d money wey ds preko dey make 4ro Alomo bitter no do am? Oliver twist greedy motherfucker.

kambah:

Ibori realy looted Bayelsa state treasury just as d case of Abacha. Africa leaders why cant u learn from Mandela. Mandela rule nd live during our time not a book story.

Ibori - Bayelsa ??
Hmmm!!

hile Nigeria officialdom maybe in a state of discomfiture by the non-recognition of Nigeria in the protocol of the funeral, the point is that it is not what Nigeria did for South Africa or for Angola or for any of the frontline states like Namibia that Nigeria will be remembered. It not the support Nigeria gave to the ANC… that Nigeria will be recognised by, it is what Nigeria has done for itself and what Nigeria has not done for itself. And we’ve done a lot against ourselves. Look at our country; our country is broken in many respects and no you’re talking about xenophobia, what led to it? Nigerian young people go overseas and become criminals the way we are criminals in our own country. People leave the shore of Nigeria to be criminals outside our shores. Right from the time they leave Nigeria they’re going overseas to be criminals. We are exporting blue-collar crimes and Yahoo Yahoo to all sorts of countries, to Malaysia and are we blaming those countries for our own woes?
“How you will be regarded abroad is determined by how you’re regarded at home. Now how is the Nigeria state regarded by Nigerians? The Nigerian state is regarded by Nigerian as an uncaring state, as a heartless state, as a state that has no love for its people, as a state that has abandoned its people. So how has the Nigerian state treated its own people before we start taking offence at how the Nigerian state is treated by another country?

kambah:

Ibori realy looted [b]Bayelsa state [/b]treasury just as d case of Abacha. Africa leaders why cant u learn from Mandela. Mandela rule nd live during our time not a book story.

...and you were told Ibori is from Bayelsa right? That being said, Mr Preko should dance to the music, simple.

Master Preko,why ?

Do the crime,face the crime.

When Tinubu be jailed

dat is how a tribal bashing thread starts,when did Ibori bcum Igbo?
small boy hav u done your geography homework ,now run off so ur momma will help u wit it.

Na wa o. We in d state could not get N5.00, but see d amount a foreigner is getting from Ibori. Pls., try and arrest as many that are involve in this laundering case.

Lilaex: K. But please stop jailing them abroad let them see wat corruption does to the country from the grass rot.

I weep for my dear State Delta. May God visite nd xpose all d evil men behind d deplorable state of Delta.... Ibori nd co

Convert and compare : convert that money ibori stole to naira and compare it to ASUU demand.