A witness in the trial of four suspected fraudsters, Abayomi Kukoyi, Prince Kingsley Okpala, Prince Chidi Okpalaeze and Prince Emmanuel Okpalaeze alongside a company, Petro Union Oil & Gas Company Limited before Justice A. Mohammed Liman of the Federal High Court, sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos on Wednesday told the court how the alleged fraud blew open.
\nThe prosecution’s first witness, Adun Howard, a former operative of the EFCC, now a banker with United Bank for Africa, PLC, led in witness by the prosecution, Rotimi Jacobs, SAN, Adun,told the court that sometime in November 2004, the Commission received a petition from the chambers of Joshua Mba and Co. alleging that a cheque of $2.5Billion was deposited on behalf of Petro Union Oil and Gas Limited with Union Bank, and that the bank failed to pay the recipient the said money.
\n\u201cWe invited Isaac Okpala to adopt the petition and he also volunteered statements. We thereafter wrote a letter of invitation to Union Bank, and they sent two representatives.
\n\u201cDuring investigation, we did not see any proof that will make us continue with the investigation, so we wrote to the complainant that there was no evidence. The complainant however wrote back to us asking us to write Union Bank requesting for the cheque deposited with them, which we did.
\n\u201cI received the cheque Union Bank brought to the Commission, and I signed for it. I also registered it with the exhibit keeper.
\nIsaac Okpala later wrote to the EFCC, requesting that the cheque be released to him, I processed the bond to release, which he signed and was released to him\u201d, Adun said.
\nThe petition, correspondences to Union Bank and the complainant were admitted in evidence and marked as exhibits.
\nThe defendants were arraigned on February 13, 2020 on a seven-count charge bordering on Conspiracy, Obtaining by False Pretence, Attempt to Steal and Forgery to the tune of \u00a32,556,000,000 (Two Billion, Five Hundred and Fifty-six Million Pounds). They however pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
\nOne of the counts preferred against them reads: \u201cThat you, Petro Union Oil and Gas Company Limited, Prince Isaac Okpala (now deceased), Abayomi Kukoyi, Prince Kingsley Okpala, Prince Chidi Okpalaeze, Prince Emmanuel Okpalaeze and Princess Gladys Okpalaeze (now at large), on or about 29th December, 1994, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, fraudulently procured a Barclays Bank cheque dated 29th December, 1994 in the sum of \u00a32,556,000,000.00 (Two Billion, Five Hundred and Fifty- six million Pounds) made payable to Gladstone Kukoyi & Associates, purporting the said cheque to be meant for foreign investment in the construction of three refineries and petrochemical complex in Nigeria, when you knew the said cheque to be false and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1 (2) (a) of the Miscellaneous Offences Act, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 1990 and punishable under the same section.\u201d
\nJustice Liman had earlier in the proceedings, granted all the defendants bail in the sum of Twenty Million Naira each, and two sureties in like sum. The sureties must be owners of landed properties within the jurisdiction of the court which will be verified by the Lands registry. The address of the defendants will also be verified by the Court Registrar.
\nThe matter was adjourned till March 4, 5, 6, 2020 while the defendants were remanded in prison custody pending the fulfilment of their bail conditions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A witness in the trial of four suspected fraudsters, Abayomi Kukoyi, Prince Kingsley Okpala, Prince Chidi Okpalaeze and Prince Emmanuel Okpalaeze alongside a company, Petro Union Oil & Gas Company Limited before Justice A. Mohammed Liman of the Federal High Court, sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos on Wednesday told the court how the alleged fraud blew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":16881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[1059,164,1060],"class_list":["post-24680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","category-news","tag-e2-55b","tag-efcc","tag-union-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}