Agency seeks to recover Sh5b from foreign firms

ARA wants the companies to forfeit the money stashed in their six accounts. [iStockphoto]

Three Nigerian companies at the centre of an international money laundering syndicate are at risk of losing Sh5.7 billion to the State for being proceeds of crime.

The Asset Recovery Agency (ARA) yesterday filed a suit seeking to compel Avalon Offshore Logistics Limited, OIT Africa Limited and RemX Capital Limited to forfeit the money stashed in their six accounts to the State for being proceeds of crime.

“We have finished our investigations and established that the funds held by the companies are direct benefits and proceeds of crime obtained from a complex money laundering syndicate scheme and are liable to be forfeited to the State,” said ARA through lawyer Mohamed Adow.

According to ARA, the three companies are suspected to have siphoned more than Sh25 billion into the country from foreign jurisdictions between October and November, last year, and that the agency only got wind of the illegal transactions when the accounts were having the balance of Sh5.7 billion.

The agency claims the firms are owned by two Nigerians and two Kenyans listed as directors but acting as proxies of powerful individuals. The agency had in April obtained orders freezing the companies' accounts pending conclusion of investigations which they say revealed the fraud.

“We've discovered they are part of a syndicate where they are using local banks as conduits of illicit money whose source has no legitimate explanation,” said Adow.

He added that the six accounts registered in the firms’ names are holding funds reasonably suspected to be proceeds of crime acquired through money laundering.

ARA claims OIT Africa has Sh4.9 billion in its three accounts at Equity Bank and United Bank for Africa (UBA), RemX Capital Limited has 787 million in its dollar account at UBA while Avalon Offshore Logistics Limited has Sh43.5 million in its two accounts at Equity Bank.

The agency’s investigator Fredrick Musyoki, in his affidavit, swore that they received information on February 11 that the companies are engaged in international money laundering and upon investigations established they had received the money from multiple locations.

“The money was mainly from foreign jurisdiction and when we summoned the directors, they could not explain their sources which made us believe they are proceeds of crime liable for forfeiture to the State,” swore Musyoki.

According to the investigator, the companies’ bank accounts had credits from various suspicious sources before they conducted hurried withdrawals and transfers to other countries to conceal, disguise and hide the nature and purpose of the funds.