Just In: UK Launches Fresh Bid To Confiscate Ibori’s Loot

Four years after returning from jail in December 2016  the United Kingdom (UK) has started a fresh process to seize tens of “proceeds of loot” in the £117 million worth of properties linked to James Ibori, former governor of Delta state.

Naija News recalls that in 2012, a UK court sentenced Ibori – who governed Delta from 1999 to 2007 – to prison after convicting him of fraud and money laundering.

The former governor ended his jail term in 2016 and returned to Nigeria the following year.

In the course of his jail term, British prosecutors made the first attempt to confiscate his assets said to be proceeds of crime but failed as a result of unresolved legal issues.

Subsequent attempts to seize the properties also hit the rock even as Ibori’s appeal against his conviction was unsuccessful.

However, Reuters is reporting that the process to confiscate the properties was re-launched in court on Thursday.

Jonathan Kinnear, a British prosecutor, was said to have listed the assets the UK is seeking to seize from the former governor “and return to Nigerian public funds.

Kinnear was quoted to have said the total value of the “known proceeds of his (Ibori’s) crimes” is £117 million (the equivalent of about N55.4 billion) but that “only a portion of that sum is likely to be recoverable.”