Former Goldman banker ordered to pay £7.3m in corruption case
UK courts order Ellias Preko to pay money or face decade more in prison
A former Goldman Sachs banker convicted of laundering the ill-gotten gains of a former state governor of Nigeria has been ordered to pay £7.3m by a British court, or face a decade more in prison.
The UK’s National Crime Agency said in a statement on Friday that Ellias Nimoh Preko, a Harvard graduate and Ghanian national, must pay the money within three months.
The confiscation order, made by Judge David Tomlinson at Southwark Crown Court this week, follows the conviction of James Ibori, the former governor of Nigeria’s Delta State, who received a 13-year jail sentence in 2012 for plundering the state’s coffers in what the presiding judge described as “financial criminality on an eye-watering scale”.
Preko, 60, already received a four-and-a-half year sentence in 2013 for his part in washing almost $4m of Ibori’s dirty money, and confiscation proceedings are still continuing against Ibori himself. Preko had left Goldman when he committed the offences and the bank is not accused of wrongdoing.
Goldman said in a statement on Friday: “The judge’s findings concerning Ellias Preko relate to activities years after his departure from Goldman Sachs.”
The extravagant lifestyle of Ibori, once a former cashier at DIY store Wickes, included expensive London properties in St John’s Wood and Hampstead, a fleet of luxury cars and close to £1m spent on his exclusive American Express card.
As well as Preko, Ibori’s London-based lawyer, Bhadresh Gohil, was convicted in 2013 as part of the scheme, as well as Ibori’s wife Theresa, mistress Udoamaka Okoronkwo and sister Christine Ibie-Ibori.
The UK has pledged to target so-called professional enablers, such as lawyers, accountants and bankers, who facilitate the wave of dirty money from around the world that washes through London every year. The NCA puts that figure at hundreds of billions of pounds.
“Professional enablers such as Ellias Preko, who use their legitimate position within the finance industry to conceal the illicit funds of criminals and corrupt elites, are the linchpin of the billions of dollars laundered through the UK each year,” said Kim Kitney, the NCA’s head of financial investigations.
“Pursuing, prosecuting and making them pay is a priority for the NCA and we will continue to target these corrupt individuals to drive illicit finance out of the UK.”
Preko represented himself in court this week, and the NCA declined to make available contact details for him.
Preko, formerly of Hanover Terrace in London, worked for Goldman dealing with west African clients.
But the Wall Street bank cut ties with Ibori in 2001, over suspicions about the origins of his wealth. Preko then left the bank and worked directly with Ibori, setting up corporate vehicles through which $3.9m of plundered assets from the state were laundered.
Ava Lee, senior campaigner at Global Witness, an international NGO, said: “For far too long London’s ‘pinstripe army’ of bankers, lawyers and accountants have been enabling and profiting from the kind of corruption that keeps poor countries poor and drives global instability. This result should be a wake-up call —- actions have consequences.”