The Channel Islands government has seized an amount valued at £211,000,000 (N96,166,359,421.95) allegedly looted by former head of state, General Sani Abacha.
Abacha, according to a report by Metro, had laundered the said money through the US into the Channel Islands, a group of British dependency islands.
The former dictator, who ruled between 1993 until his death in 1998, had put the money in accounts held in Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands.
The money was said to be looked after by a British Virgin Islands company, Doraville Properties Corporation.
Authorities in the islands, the report say, are willing to come to an agreement with the United States and Nigeria on how it should be distributed.
In 2014, at the request of US authorities, the Island’s Attorney General, Robert MacRae, applied for and was granted a restraining order by the Royal Court over the Jersey bank account balance of Doraville.
Mr MacRae said that in restraining the funds “Jersey has once again demonstrated its commitment to tackling international financial crime and money laundering.”
After legal challenge by Doraville, the Privy Council, Jersey’s ultimate appellate court, in February 2018, quashed the company’s appeal to be granted access to the money.
