SERIAL FRAUDSTER EMMANUEL NWUDE, TWO LAWYERS JAILED FOR FORGERY OF FORFEITED PROPERTY DOCUMENTS
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By Aishat Momoh. O.
Twenty-one years after his conviction for defrauding a Brazilian bank of $242 million, convicted fraudster Emmanuel Nwude has again been sentenced to prison for forging documents relating to a property previously seized from him by the court.
The Lagos High Court sitting in Ikeja convicted Nwude alongside two lawyers—Emmanuel Ilechukwu and Rowland Kalu—sentencing each of them to one year imprisonment for forgery and dealing in forfeited property.
Delivering judgment, Justice Mojisola Dada found the defendants guilty on 13 out of the 15 counts brought against them, while acquitting them on two counts relating to false statements.
The trio had been arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over allegations of forging documents and illegally dealing with a forfeited property located at Plot Y, Mobolaji Johnson Street, Oregun Alausa, in Lagos.
According to the anti-graft agency, the defendants forged documents relating to the property, created documents without authority, transferred forfeited property to nominees and attempted to reclaim and sell it despite an existing forfeiture order.
They were also charged with offences including making false statements to a public officer, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, fabricating evidence and providing false information to investigators.
The offences were said to have been committed between 2011 and 2012.
Following a petition received by the EFCC in July 2017, the defendants were arraigned before the court in March 2018, where they pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Nwude’s legal troubles date back to 2005, when he and three others were convicted by Justice Olubunmi Oyewole—now a Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria—for impersonating former Central Bank of Nigeria governor Paul Ogwuma to defraud Banco Noroeste, a Brazilian bank, of $242 million between 1995 and 1998.
During that earlier case, Nwude agreed to a plea bargain, which required him to surrender several assets—including landed properties, vehicles, shares and stocks—as restitution for the fraud.
The assets also included the entire undertaking of his company, Emrus Auto Nigeria Ltd..
The court ordered that all listed properties be forfeited to the victims of the crime, while the company was to be wound up and its assets transferred to the Federal Government of Nigeria after the terms of the plea bargain were fulfilled.
One of the forfeited properties, located at Mobolaji Johnson Street in Oregun, was subsequently sold.
However, after completing his five-year prison term, Nwude allegedly hired the two lawyers in a bid to reclaim the property and sell it—an action the court ruled was in clear violation of the earlier forfeiture order and plea bargain agreement.
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