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When then Nigerian head of state Sani Abacha stole billions of dollars and died before spending his loot, it sparked a decades-long international treasure hunt. The man hired to collect the money tells the BBC’s Clare Spencer how research has taken over his life.
In September 1999, Swiss lawyer Enrico Monfrini answered a phone call that would change his next 20 years.
“He called me in the middle of the night, he asked me if I could come to his hotel, he had something important. I said, ‘It’s a little late but it’s okay.’ “
The voice at the end of the line was that of a high ranking member of the Nigerian government.
“Can you find the money?
Mr Monfrini said the official was sent to Geneva by then Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to recruit him to recover money stolen by Abacha, who ruled from 1993 until his death in 1998. .
As a lawyer, Mr. Monfrini had built up a Nigerian clientele since the 1980s, working in coffee, cocoa and other commodities.
He suspects that these customers recommended him.
“He asked me, ‘Can you find the money and can you block the money? Can you organize the return of this money to Nigeria?
“I said yes.’ But I actually didn’t know much about the job at the time, and I had to learn really quickly, so I did.
To start with, Nigerian police handed him details of a few closed Swiss bank accounts, which appeared to hold some of the money Abacha and his associates had stolen, Mr Monfrini wrote in the book Recovering Stolen Assets.
He said a preliminary investigation released by police in November 1998 found more than $ 1.5 billion (£ 1.1 billion) had been stolen by Abacha and his associates.
‘Dollars per truck’
One of the methods used to accumulate such a colossal sum was particularly brazen.
Abacha was telling a counselor to ask him for money for a vague security issue.
He then approved the request which the adviser would then pass on to the central bank, which distributed the money, often in cash.
The counselor then brought most of this money to Abacha’s house.
Some have even been taken in dollar bills “by truck,” Monfrini wrote.
It was only one way for Abacha and his associates to steal huge sums of money. Other methods ranged from awarding state contracts to friends at grossly inflated prices, then pocketing the difference and requiring foreign companies to pay huge bribes to operate in the country.
This lasted for about three years until everything changed when Abacha passed away suddenly, at the age of 54, on June 8, 1998.
It is not known whether he had a heart attack or was poisoned because there was no autopsy, his personal doctor told the BBC.
Abacha died before spending the stolen billions and a few bank details served as clues as to where this money was hidden.
“The documents showing the account history gave me some links to other accounts,” Monfrini said.
On the basis of this information, he brought the case before the Swiss Attorney General.
And then came a breakthrough.
Mr Monfrini successfully argued that the Abacha family and their associates formed a criminal organization.
This was essential because it opened up more options on how the authorities could manage their bank accounts.
The Attorney General has issued a general alert to all banks in Switzerland demanding that they disclose the existence of any accounts opened under the names and pseudonyms of the Abachas.
“Within 48 hours, 95% of banks and other financial institutions reported what they had that appeared to be family.”
This would discover a network of bank accounts all over the world.
“The banks would hand documents over to the Geneva prosecutor and I would do the prosecutor’s job because he didn’t have time to do it,” Monfrini told the BBC.
‘Bank accounts talk a lot’
“We would find out on each account exactly where the money was coming from and / or where it was going.
“Viewing the ins and outs of these bank accounts gave me additional information about other payments received from other countries and sent to other countries.
“So it was like a snowball. It started with a few accounts, then a large number of accounts, which created a snowball effect indicating a huge international transaction.
“Bank accounts and the documents that accompany them speak a lot.
“We had so much evidence of different money being sent here and there in the Bahamas, Nassau, the Cayman Islands – name it.”
The size of the Abacha network represented a huge effort for Mr. Monfrini.
“No one seems to understand the amount of work involved. I have to pay so many people, so many accountants, so many other lawyers in different countries. “
Mr Monfrini had agreed to a 4% commission on the money returned to Nigeria. A rate he insisted was comparatively “very cheap”.
Finding the money was relatively quick compared to returning to Nigeria.
“The Abachas were fighting like dogs. They appealed to everything we did. It delayed the process for a very long time. “
Further delays occurred as Swiss politicians argued over whether the money would be stolen again if returned.
Some of the money was returned from Switzerland after five years.
Mr Monfrini wrote in 2008 that $ 508 million found in the Abacha family’s numerous Swiss bank accounts had been sent from Switzerland to Nigeria between 2005 and 2007.
By 2018, the amount that Switzerland had returned to Nigeria had reached over $ 1 billion.
Other countries have been slower to return the money.
“Liechtenstein, for example, was a disaster. It was a nightmare. “
In June 2014, Liechtenstein finally sent Nigeria $ 277 million.
Six years later, in May 2020, $ 308 million held in accounts based on the Channel Island of Jersey were also returned to Nigeria. This only came after Nigerian authorities agreed that the money would be used, specifically, to help finance the construction of the Second Niger Bridge, the Lagos-Ibadan Highway, and the Abuja-Kano Road.
Some countries have yet to return the loot.
Mr Monfrini still expects $ 30 million to be returned to the UK, he says, $ 144 million to France and an additional $ 18 million to Jersey.
That should be it, “but you never know,” he said.
In total, he says his work resulted in the return of just over $ 2.4 billion.
“At first people said Abacha stole at least $ 4-5 billion. I do not think it is. I think we more or less took the most, took a very large part of what they had.
He has heard rumors that the Abacha family is not so rich anymore.
Or, as he puts it, “They don’t swim in money like they did in the past.”
When he looks back he seems satisfied with his job.
“When I tell my many, many children about this case, I tell them that I found the money and that I blocked the money, I persuaded the authorities to go after these people and to bring the money home for the good of the Nigerian people.
“We did the job.”
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