Ibori owns 30% of Oando … Oando reacts

Former Governor of Delta state, James Ibori currently serving jail term in UK has reportedly told a Swiss private bank in 2004 that he owned 30 percent of oil firm Oando, which paid $1.2 million into his account that year, a prosecutor told a British court on Tuesday.

Prosecutor Sasha Wass told Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday that in 2004, Ibori was at the Lugano-based PKB and opened an account at in the name of a shell company called Stanhope Investments. Document available at the PKB showed that Ibori had resented himself to the bank as the owner of an insurance company, half of a bank and 30 percent of Oando. Wass told the court.

Meanwhile, the management of Oando has refuted claim that Ibori owns 30% of the oil company According to a source close to the NigerianEcho” …Ibori has only an insignificant holding in the firm.”

Ibori was jailed for 13 years in Britain after pleading guilty in February 2012 to 10 counts of fraud and money-laundering worth 50 million pounds. Reuters reported that details of Ibori’s assets and how he kept them hidden from the public gaze through a web of shell companies and foreign bank accounts are being disclosed as part of a three-week confiscation hearing which began in London on Monday.