draining development.pdf - Khazar University

428 Draining Development?one day be repatriated to Nigeria. Success has been the result of the rapidestablishment of an investigative process in Nigeria, followed by thecooperation of the (offshore) Swiss authorities who instituted criminalproceedings, demanded the disclosure of information by all Swiss financialinstitutions, and then joined Nigeria as a civil party to the proceedings,thus allowing Nigeria’s own lawyer access to all the criminal evidence,enabling him to assist the investigating magistrates in a directfashion and to obtain rapid cooperation in other havens, notably Jersey,Liechtenstein, and Luxembourg. This shows the value of identifying aproactive lead jurisdiction to demand action in such cases.It has taken the U.K. common law system a while to learn the lessonsthe Abacha case has taught, but the next case study in this chapter, onAlamieyeseigha, is testimony to some of the lessons learned.Governor Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State, NigeriaIntroductionDiepreye Peter Solomon Alamieyeseigha was elected governor of Nigeria’sBayelsa State in May 1999 and reelected in 2003. His term of officewas supposed to run until May 2007, but was cut short by impeachmentfor corruption in December 2005.Between the start of his period of office in May 1999 to late 2005,Alamieyeseigha accumulated (outside Nigeria) known properties, bankaccounts, investments, and cash exceeding £10 million in value.His portfolio of foreign assets included accounts with five banks inthe United Kingdom and additional accounts with banks in Cyprus,Denmark, and the United States; four London properties acquired for atotal of £4.8 million; a Cape Town harbor penthouse acquired for almost£1 million; possible assets in the United States; and almost £1 million incash stored at one of his London properties.Some of the foreign assets were held in his name and the name of hiswife, but the bulk were held by companies and trusts incorporated in thefollowing jurisdictions:• The Bahamas: Falcon Flights Incorporated, the company that maintainedthe bank account with UBS AG in London