JAMES IBORI
Former Governor of Delta State – Nigeria
Former Governor of Delta State – Nigeria
James Ibori, governor of Nigeria’s oil-rich Delta State from 1999 to 2007, pleaded guilty in a London court in 2012 to conspiracy to defraud and money laundering offenses. Ibori admitted using his position as governor to corruptly obtain and divert up to $75 million out of Nigeria through a network of offshore companies, although authorities alleged that the total amount he embezzled might have exceeded $250 million. Ibori, who received a 13-year prison sentence, used millions of dollars to support a lavish lifestyle that included six houses in London and a fleet of Range Rovers, Bentleys and Mercedes.
Mossack Fonseca was the registered agent of four offshore companies connected to James Ibori, including Julex Foundation, of which Ibori and family members were beneficiaries. Julex was the shareholder of Stanhope Investments, a company incorporated in Niue in 2003. Ibori was also connected to Financial Advisory Group Ltd. and Hunglevest Corporation, although Mossack Fonseca’s files do not specify the exact nature of his connection. In 2008, Mossack Fonseca received a request from the Seychelles government to produce documents as part of a probe by the Crown Prosecution Service, England’s principal prosecuting authority, of Ibori and alleged criminal activities. In 2012, Ibori pleaded guilty in a London court to laundering and fraud charges. During court hearings in the United Kingdom, prosecutors claimed that Ibori opened a Swiss bank account in the name of Stanhope Investments through which millions of dollars were later channelled to ultimately buy a $20 million private jet.
Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer, and allegations of corruption and mismanagement of funds within the lucrative industry are nothing new. A report published last summer by the National Resource Governance Institute, a global governance watchdog in New York, revealed that Nigeria’s state-run oil firm has increasingly withheld large sums of money from government coffers. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has failed to remit about $12.3 billion from the sale of 110 million barrels of oil over 10 years. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has made reforming the NNPC a top priority since he took office last year.
EDUARDO CUNHA
President of Chamber of Deputies – Brazil
President of Chamber of Deputies – Brazil
Idalécio de Castro Rodrigues de Oliveira is a Portuguese corporate executive who, according to Brazil’s attorney general, supplied money that was paid as a suspected bribe to Eduardo Cunha, the president of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies, currently under indictment for alleged corruption. De Oliveira is the chief executive of the Lusitania Group, which purchased certain oil licenses in West Africa in 2011 and entered into a partnership with Petrobras, Brazil’s oil giant, which is currently at the heart of the country’s largest-ever corruption probe. Cunha has repeatedly denied accusations against him and recently told reporters, “I am not worried… I will continue to work.”
De Oliveira owned a conglomerate he called the “Lusitania Group,” made up of 14 companies incorporated in the British Virgin Islands from 2003 to 2011, with interests in oil, gas and mining operations. In October 2015, a report by Brazil’s attorney general connected de Oliveira to Brazil’s Lava Jato (“Car Wash”) corruption scandal. In 2011, Brazil’s state-owned energy company Petrobras bought a 50 per cent stake of an oil field in Benin controlled by de Oliveira’s companies. Twelve of his 14 offshore companies were incorporated just months before his agreement with Petrobras. According to the attorney general’s report, in May 2011, de Oliveira wired $10 million to a Swiss bank account held by João Augusto Rezende Henriques, a lobbyist for Brazilian party PMDB, through Acona International Investments Limited, a Seychelles company also registered by Mossack Fonseca in 2010. Over the next several weeks, the report said, Rezende Henriques wired $1.5 million to a Swiss bank account controlled by Eduardo Cunha, president of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies and a member since 2003.
