Alleged money laundering: FG tenders $1m hard currency, others in trial of retired Air Chief

BY AGENCY REPORTER                    

THE Federal Government, on Thursday, tendered before the Federal High Court, Abuja, different currencies of dollars stashed in three bags as evidence in the money laundering charge against Air Commodore Umar Mohammed (retd).

Counsel to the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Magaji Labaran, tendered the bags of money before Justice Inyang Ekwo while leading the only witness in the case, Stephen Olatubosun, in evidence.

Mohammed (1st defendant) and his company, Easy Jet Integrated Service Ltd (2nd defendant), are being charged with three counts bordering on money laundering, illegal possession of firearms and possession of classified documents without lawful authority.

The retired air officer and his company are alleged to have received the sum of one million, thirty thousand American Dollars ($1,030,000) in cash from Worldwide Consortium PTY Ltd, as payment for freight services on 19th June, 2016, contrary to the Money Laundering Act 2011 (as Amended).

Justice Ekwo had, on Wednesday, ordered that the currencies be counted with a counting machine at the office of the Deputy Chief Registrar (Litigation) in the presence of all the parties to ascertain the total amount before they were tendered at the court.

At the resumed trial on Thursday, the AGF lawyer told the court that the parties in the case had complied with the court order.

“My lord, we have done the needful at the office of the Chief Deputy Registrar (Litigation). The currencies were counted and are in three bags labelled Bag A, Bag B and Bag C,” Labaran said.

Also, lawyer to the defendants, Hassan Liman, SAN, confirmed that all the parties were duly represented during the counting of the currencies.

The prosecution witness, Olatubosun, a staff of the the Department of State Security Service (DSS), identified the three bags of money when he was being led in evidence by Labaran.

“There are three bags; two black and one brown. They are labelled as Bag A, Bag B and Bag C respectively with the currencies sum attached to them,” he responded.

The witness, giving the breakdown of the sum in each bags, said Bag A contained 529, 400 dollars and Bag B had 499, 800 dollars.

Olatubosun said Bag C contained different currencies of dollars including naira notes.

-ThePoint