EFCC seeks court warrant to arrest Briton, James Nolan over $9.6billion fraud

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Thursday made a tripartite application before Justice D.U. Okorowo of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, praying the court to issue a bench warrant for the arrest of a Briton, James Richard Nolan, over the $9.6billion P&ID scam.

Recall that Nolan, a Director in the Process and Industrial Development Limited (P&ID) is facing a $9.6 billion money laundering trial alongside Goidel Resources and ICIL Limited.

The trial on a 16-count money laundering charge started in the time of Justice Okon Abang of the same Federal High Court in Abuja in 2019 when the EFCC had already secured the liquidation of the company and the conviction of some of its management staff.

One of the witnesses presented by the EFCC, Adewale Agunbiade, an account officer with Guarantee Trust Bank, Abuja, who handled the opening of the accounts for the companies, during one of the proceedings in 2019 told the court that he knew the defendant and was familiar with the names of Goidel Resources Ltd and ICIL Ltd.

When the prosecution counsel led Agunbiade in evidence, he said, ”We received a request to provide the account opening document from the EFCC and the statement of account in August 2019.

”We had the account opening document retrieved from our archives and the statements were generated. We forwarded it to our compliance team to deliver to the EFCC.”

The witness further told the court that $125,000 was credited to the account of Goidel Resources Ltd. by Nolan on February 1, 2016 through account number 0154696732, adding that on February 13, 2018, there was a transfer of $120,000 from LIR Resources Nigeria Ltd. to Goidel Resources.

He also revealed that on December 15, 2015, there was a transfer of N50million from Box Design Ltd to Goidel Resources Ltd via the account number 0151728629, noting that on November 6, 2015, a transfer of N10m came again from Box Design to Goidel Resources.

The EFCC had arraigned Nolan before the Federal High Court but it was reported that he jumped bail.

On Thursday, the prosecution counsel, E. E. Iheanacho informed the court that the matter was for continuation of trial, saying that he had his witness in court and ready to proceed “but apparently the proceedings of today will be halted because of the third defendant’s absence”.