BRITISH anti-corruption authorities have confirmed that former petroleum minister Diezani Alison-Madueke and her two brothers will be arraigned before a court later this year in connection with bribery and money laundering allegations. 

Last week, Ms Alison-Madueke was arrested at her west London home by the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) and taken to Charing Cross Police Station, where she was quizzed for several hours. She was later released on bail to appear in court yesterday where an injunction was obtained to seize £27,000 from her. 

Apparently, she was arrested with her brothers Abiye Agama and Somye Agama, who are all directors of Hadley Petroleum Solutions, a company believe to have been used for money laundering. Other directors of the company registered in June 2013 in Manchester but dissolved in February this year without filing any accounts, are Ugonna Madueke and Abu Fari. 

Abiye, 33, a point man of the firm, is a computer engineer and manager and was a director in 11 other companies, from which he resigned from seven of them. None of the siblings were present at yesterday's hearing at London's Westminster Magistrate’s Court but nonetheless, the judge approved the seizure of $41,000 (£27,000) cash from Ms Alison-Madueke.. 

NCA prosecutors had filed an application for the seizure of the cash under the Proceeds of Crime Act in the UK and the court ruled that the money can be held for six months. Britain's Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 sets out the legislative scheme for the recovery of criminal assets with confiscation being the most commonly used power. 

An NCA spokesman said: “Since 2010, more than £746m of criminal assets has been seized across all four methods of recovery, which is a record amount. Over the same period, assets worth more than £2.5bn have been frozen, denying criminals access to these resources and £93m has been returned to victims.” 

In addition to the money seized from Ms Alison-Madueke, the NCA also secured the seizure of the sum of £5,000 and $2,000  from Beatrice Agama, her mother and £10,000 from Melanie Spencer, one of the other persons arrested in the case. Both of them were in court to hear the pronouncement. 

It is believed that Ms Alison-Madueke attracted attention to herself as early as 2013 when she bought a London mansion for £12.5m. Along with the managing director of one of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) subsidiaries, she bought the house and offered to pay for it with cash, which immediately alerted the authorities. 

One government source said: “This particular investigation did not originate from Nigeria. I can tell you that this is different from the investigation being conducted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission into the financial operations of the NNPC under Alison-Madueke. 

“This is a strictly UK investigation and it has to do with the procurement of a property in the UK for £12.5m through a mortgage arrangement in London. The UK authorities became suspicious when they realised that the agreed monthly amount for the mortgage was too high for the income of a public official without other sources of income. 

“You know the UK people, they kept quiet when the whole arrangement was going on in 2013 and they allowed the funds to go into their economy before they moved in against them with the intent to seize the properties. She was not the only person that bought the properties as the other guy, a close ally from the NNPC also bought a house in London, which is what the UK police are investigating.”