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Deputy governor gets 10 years jail term for bribery

Deputy governor gets 10 years jail term for bribery

Follow @NigeriaPI A court in the south-western city of Liupanshui has sentenced to 10 years in jail a former vice governor of the populous province of Sichuan for bribery. In a brief statement, the Chinese court said that Li Chengyun had taken bribes worth 6.36 million Yuan ($933,250). It was not possible to reach a legal or family representative for comment. Sichuan, famed for its spicy cuisine, has emerged as a focus of Xi Jinping’s crackdown on graft, since it was a power base for Zhou Yongkang, the country’s once powerful domestic security boss. Zhou was jailed for life in 2015 for corruption, and dozens of his associates have also been arrested, many in Sichuan, where he was Communist Party boss from 1999 to 2002. According to his official biography, Li spent his entire working life in Sichuan, where he was party chief in the provincial city of Deyang when Zhou was in charge of Sichuan. (Reuters/NAN) source: the...
EFCC seizes second property from Jonathan’s godson

EFCC seizes second property from Jonathan’s godson

Follow @NigeriaPI The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has seized another property from George Turnah, a godson to former President Goodluck Jonathan. The property, which is located at Citec Estate, Gwarinpa, Abuja, is a duplex. Although the EFCC has yet to evaluate the value of the property, sources told our correspondent that such property would go for between N70m and N100m. As of Tuesday afternoon, the inscription, ‘EFCC, Keep off’ was seen across the fence and the gate of the building. The commission is still tracing Turnah’s remaining properties. Last week, the anti-graft agency seized a mansion and some other properties allegedly traced to Turnah who is standing trial for an alleged N3bn fraud. The commission also froze about seven bank accounts through which Turnah allegedly received billions of naira. Justice Ibrahim Watilat had granted the interim forfeiture order based on an application filed before the court by the EFCC’s counsel, Adebola Olatunji. Turnah, together with seven companies, were arraigned on 12 charges bordering on obtaining money by false pretences, money laundering and abuse of office to the tune of N3, 094, 268, 235.69. Meanwhile, some aggrieved youths in Bayelsa State on Tuesday staged a peaceful demonstration in Yenagoa, the state capital, in support of the EFCC. The youths, particularly commended the anti-graft agency for the arrest and detention of Turner. On Tuesday, the angry youths, under the aegis of the Concerned Citizens of Bayelsa State, led by their coordinators, Chief Harrow Zuokomor and Mr. Abule Bethel, said Bayelsa was still in shock at the magnitude of funds seized from Turner by the EFCC. The youths were armed with...
Court hears Jonathan cousin’s suit against EFCC July 5

Court hears Jonathan cousin’s suit against EFCC July 5

Follow @NigeriaPI The Federal High Court in Lagos has adjourned till July 5 for hearing in a fundamental rights enforcement suit filed against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission by a cousin to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Robert Azibaola. Azibaola filed the suit to challenge his alleged unlawful detention by the EFCC last year March. In the suit filed before Justice Mojisola Olatoregun, Azibaola’s lawyer, Mr. Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, contended that the EFCC had no right under sections 293 and 294 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act to detain his client. Adegboruwa claimed that the EFCC detained Azibaola to make him implicate Jonathan, a move, he argued, was a violation of Section 7 of the ACJA, ‘which has outlawed the practice of arresting a citizen as ransom for the alleged offence of another citizen’. He claimed that Azibaola was being persecuted based on his relationship to Jonathan and also alleged that the EFCC had perfected a plan to keep transferring Azibaola from one state to another in order to keep renewing the remand warrant to ensure that he was perpetually kept in detention. He argued that the sections of the ACJA relied upon by the EFCC to detain Azibaola were designed for criminal offences such as murder, armed robbery, kidnapping and treasonable felony, which attracted capital punishment and for which the police would need time to await a legal advice from the office of the attorney-general. But the EFCC, which had arraigned Azibaola for an alleged scam of $40m, urged the court to dismiss the suit. The anti-graft agency alleged that Azibaola fraudulently received $40m in September 2014 from...
Traffickers swallowing condoms filled with liquid cocaine

Traffickers swallowing condoms filled with liquid cocaine

Follow @NigeriaPI Traffickers are increasingly swallowing condoms filled with liquid cocaine to cheat traditional detection methods, Interpol said Tuesday as it pointed to West African and Asian gangs driving the Asia-Pacific narcotics trade. Interpol’s Singapore office, which said methamphetamine remains the region’s most trafficked substance, highlighted the rising trend in a report on an international anti-drug operation in May. The campaign, called Operation Lionfish – ASEAN, involved more than 2,000 police and customs officials in 14 countries, said a statement from the Interpol Global Complex in Singapore which coordinated it. It focused on drug trafficking through airports while a second phase will target land and sea borders. The operation “revealed a network of West African and Asian organised crime groups behind trafficking in methamphetamine — one of the most smuggled drugs in the region,” the statement said. Of 59 seizures during the two-week period, nearly a quarter of the drugs confiscated was methamphetamine, of which nearly 80 percent was in crystalline form known as “ice”. Cocaine, cannabis, heroin and amphetamine stimulants were also among the drugs seized, it said, adding that smugglers were becoming more innovative. Authorities in the United Arab Emirates have identified a rising trend of liquid cocaine being trafficked, Interpol said. “Smugglers would swallow condoms packed with liquid cocaine,” it said, adding that this type of concealment is harder to detect using traditional methods like X-rays. Interpol said it identified a “cocaine trafficking route via Ethiopia to destinations in the Middle East, Asia and Pacific”. source: the...

$450m lost to cyber crime in Nigeria —Senate

Follow @NigeriaPI ABUJA—THE Senate, yesterday, said Nigeria has lost about $450 million to 3,500 cyber attacks on its Information and Communication Technology, ICT, space. According to the Senate, this represents over 70 per cent of hacking attempts on technology in the country. Against this backdrop, the Senate asked the National Security Adviser, NSA,Major-General Mohammed Babagana Monguno (retd), to, as a matter of urgency, alert all security agencies and financial institutions in the country about the current and threatening dimensions of cyber attacks. The Senate also asked its Committee on ICT and Cybercrime to immediately convoke a national stakeholders’ conference on cyber security that would help stimulate what it described as a collective reflection among relevant stakeholders and articulate a national and broad-based approach to keep the country ahead of the challenges. The Senate, which noted that the figures were arrived at by revelations from studies, expressed concern that government servers were currently under serious threat. The upper chamber, however, lamented that the ICT shortfall in Nigeria was enormous, while its cyberspace had become very porous, adding that the system lacked a well-structured and effective approach to cyber-crime control, according to the oversight findings of the Senate Committee on ICT and Cybercrime. Yesterday’s resolutions of the Senate were sequel to a motion by Senator Abdulfatai Buhari (APC Oyo North), entitled: “Worrisome dimension of cyber-crime and insecurity, urgent need for concerted efforts to secure Nigeria’s cyberspace.” Get ready to fight cyber war— Ekweremadu Meanwhile, Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over yesterday’s plenary, however, called for concerted efforts at confronting the cyber war currently threatening the world. Ekweremadu noted that...