A Federal High Court in Lagos on Tuesday adjourned until June 13, the money laundering trial of a Managing Director of the defunct Intercontinental Bank Plc., Erastus Akingbola.
Mr Akingbola is being tried on 22 counts of money laundering by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
He denied the charges on his re-arraignemnt in March.
When the case was called out for continuation on Tuesday, it turned out the judge was on another official assignment.
EFCC alleged that Akingbola was connected with the utilisation of an aggregate sum of N179.4 billion of the bank’s fund, for the purchase of the bank’s shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), thereby inflating the rate of the bank’s shares on the NSE.
The defendant was also accused of converting an aggregate sum of $1.3 million and $8.5 million, taken from the bank’s GBP NOSTRO account at Deutsche Bank in London.
The anti-graft agency said the sum was remitted into the account of Fuglers Solicitors with the Royal Bank of Scotland in London, to purchase property in the name of Life Boat Settlement Trust, set up by the defendant.
Akingbola, the prosecution says, knew that the sums represented proceeds of crime which includes stealing.
The offences contravene the provisions of sections 105(1) and 105(a), of the Investment and Securities Act, 2007.
It also contravenes the provisions of sections 13 (1), 15(1)(a), and 28(3) of the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act, Cap B3, Laws of the Federation 2004.
The offence also contravenes the provisions of sections 14(1) of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act, 2004.
