UPDATED: Companies plead guilty to laundering “Patience Jonathan’s $15m”

The four companies charged with money laundering, alongside a former Special Adviser on Domestic Affairs to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Waripamo-Owei Dudafa, have pleaded guilty to the offence.

The four companies pleaded guilty to conspiring with Dudafa; a lawyer, Amajuoyi Briggs; and a banker, Adedamola Bolodeoku, to launder a sum of  $15,591,700 on or about November 13, 2013.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, while arraigning the seven accused before a Federal High Court in Lagos on Thursday, told the court that the $15.6m was proceeds of theft.

Though Dudafa, Briggs and Bolodeoku pleaded not guilty to the amended 15 counts pressed against them by the EFCC, the four companies charged along with them owned up to committing the offence.

The four companies pleaded guilty to conspiring with Dudafa and the two others to launder a sum of  $15,591,700 before a Federal High Court in Lagos on Thursday.

The companies are: Pluto Property and Investment Company Limited; Seagate Property Development & Investment Co. Limited; Trans Ocean Property and Investment Company Limited; and Avalon Global Property Development Company Limited.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had since frozen the $15.6m found in the four companies’ accounts in Skye Bank.

But wife of ex-President Jonathan, Patience, has sued the EFCC and Skye Bank, laying claims to the money.