Nigerian Oil tycoon Kola Aluko sells his Bel-Air mansion for $21.5m as authorities investigate him
Controversial Nigerian
oil tycoon, Kola Aluko (right) has sold his Bel-Air, Los Angeles mansion, as
Nigerian and European authorities investigate him for alleged series of
money-laundering and fraud-related crimes, Forbes reports, quoting The Los
Angeles Times.
The 46-year-old sold the
home last week for $21.5 million, taking a $3 million loss after purchasing the
sprawling residence in 2012 for $24.5 million. Aluko apparently sold the
mansion in an off-market transaction using a limited-liability company.
Aluko's former home - a
contemporary-style showplace in the 700 block of Sabonne Road, Los Angeles, was
designed by architect Paul McClean and built in 2011. The property sits on more
than an acre, has a gated entrance, a subterranean garage and a 132-square-foot
infinity-edge swimming pool among other features.
For a long time, Aluko
had been linked as a business associate of Nigeria's former Petroleum minister,
Diezani Alison-Madueke, who is currently under investigation by Nigerian and
British authorities for money laundering and embezzlement.
Shortly after she became
oil minister in 2010, Alisonm-Madueke awarded Atlantic Energy - an unknown
start-up co-founded by Aluko, a very lucrative contract to fund NNPC's
operational costs in four lucrative oil blocks in which the NNPC owned a stake.
In return for providing
funding to the NNPC, Atlantic Energy was to lift the crude produced from the
oil blocks, sell it, and thereafter pay the state-owned oil firm its share of
profits.
But there is an
allegation and considerable proof that Atlantic Energy did not make any upfront
funding but lifted crude and that a huge chunk of the proceeds from the sale of
the crude did not make it to NNPC's coffers and, by extention, the Nigerian
treasury.
An email to Kola Aluko
to confirm the sale of his Bel-Air property was not responded to as at the time
of this report.
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