The Acting Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, (NPA), Mohammed Bello-Koko, reportedly owns properties in the United Kingdom which he acquired by secretly running offshore businesses in the British Virgin Islands.
This was revealed in a Pandora Papers project, led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, (ICIJ). In the course of the project, leaked documents were retrieved from 14 offshore services firms around the world.
Recall that Bello-Koko was appointed as acting MD of NPA following the suspension of Hadiza Bala-Usman reportedly over her disagreement with Rotimi Amaechi, transportation minister earlier in the year.
According to the report, the leaked documents revealed that Bello-Koko and his wife, Agatha Anne Koko, enlisted the services of financial secrecy seller, Cook Worldwide and Alemán; Cordero; Galindo & Lee (Alcogal), an offshore law firm, to secretly register Coulwood Limited (reg. number: 1487897) and Marney Limited (reg. number: 1487944) in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), one of the world’s most commonly used tax havens in 2008. Both companies were registered the same day — June 19, 2008.
The regulators in the BVI also had his companies under watch for suspected money laundering — a problem Alcogal reportedly helped him tackle with some misinformation provided to the regulators.
Using the two companies, Coulwood Limited and Marney Limited, tucked away offshore, Bello-Koko was said to have anonymously acquired five London properties.
The report further said four of the properties were acquired between 2009 and 2012, and that Bello-Koko potentially exploited UK tax loopholes which allowed the owning of UK properties using so-called envelope structure, that is, anonymously owning properties through offshore companies.
When contacted, Bello-Koko did not respond to any of the allegations.
