Court orders forfeiture of N450m found in Lagos plaza to FG

The Federal High Court, Lagos, has ordered the formal forfeiture of N449,597,000 (about N450 million) found by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in LEGICO Shopping mall, Victoria Island, Lagos to the Federal Government of Nigeria. Justice Rilwan Aikawa of the court gave the judgement on Friday.
It would be recalled that the EFCC had on April 8 said it uncovered a large sum of suspected laundered money to the tune of N448,850,000 in the shopping plaza.
Mr. Aikawa had on April 19 ordered an interim forfeiture of the said money uncovered by the commission. The order came following a motion ex-parte filed by Rotimi Oyedepo, a prosecutor with the EFCC pursuant to Section 17 of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act No. 14, 2006.
Justice Aikawa in his ruling last month, ordered anyone interested in the money to appear before him at the next adjourned date to show reason why the money should not be permanently forfeited to the Federal Government.
He also directed the commission to publish in any national daily for anyone to show cause within 14 days why the order for the final forfeiture should not be granted.
However, in his motion on notice at the resumed hearing on Friday, Mr. Idris Mohammed, counsel to the EFCC urged the court to issue a final order forfeiting the total sum of N449,597,000 to the Federal Government.
Mohammed said “the sum is reasonably suspected to be proceeds of unlawful activity.”
In his ruling, Aikawa stated: “I have perused the motion on notice and as far as my records show, neither the respondent nor any other interested party has filed any affidavit or any other process to show course why the interim order should not be granted.”
“I have no other option but to grant the motion as prayed.”
“I hereby order that the sum of N449,597,000 found in the possession of the respondent which is believed to be proceeds of unlawful activity be finally forfeited to the Federal government of Nigeria.” He said.