Online News media have been giving different accounts and mentioning huge figures allegedly swindled by the immediate past Petroleum Minister, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke as reasons for her arrest by British security operatives in London last Friday.
The truth that has emerged from a reliable source show that the ex-minister got herself in hot waters as a result of a building worth £12.5 million she acquired in 2013 through a mortgage arrangement in London.
The agreed monthly amount for the mortgage raised suspicions among UK authorities which they knew was too high to be paid through a public official's legitimate income.
It was learnt that the UK’s National Crimes Agency had dispatched a team to Abuja for an investigation into the incomes of the affected public officers because of the huge amount of money that was being paid steadily to defray the amount on the mortgage.
The source explained that the police suspected that the mortgaged London properties might have been serviced with laundered money from the Government of Nigeria.
The source said, “This particular investigation did not originate from Nigeria. I can tell you that this is different from the investigation being conducted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission into the financial operations of the NNPC under Alison-Madueke.
“This is a strictly UK investigation and it has to do with the procurement of a property in the UK for £12.5m through a mortgage arrangement in London.
“The UK authorities became suspicious when they realised that the agreed monthly amount for the mortgage was too high for the income of a public official without other sources of income.
“You know the (UK) people; they kept quiet when the whole arrangement was going on in 2013. They allowed the funds to go into their economy before they moved in against them with the intent to seize the properties.
The investigation, which commenced in 2013 climaxed Friday last week with the arrest of Alison-Madueke and four others by the UK police for alleged fraud.
The EFCC raided the residence of the ex-minister at Asokoro same day she was arrested in the UK.
Although the raid did not yield any huge financial recovery contrary to media reports, the operatives from the Subsidy Unit of the EFCC carted away several documents from the residence.
The EFCC operatives, who insisted that only N1.2 million was recovered from the Asokoro residence of the minister, said that the files moved away from her house were being analysed.
Meanwhile, the British National Crime Agency on Monday obtained court permission to temporarily seize £27,000 (N8.078m) from a former petroleum resources minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, Reuters reports.
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