Ellias Nimoh Preko, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. investment banker convicted of laundering funds plundered by a former state governor of Nigeria, was ordered by a British court to pay roughly £7.3 million or serve a further ten years in jail, according to the U.K. National Crime Agency.
A judge at the Southwark Crown Court ordered Preko to pay the amount in three months.
Preko received a 4.5-year sentence in December 2013 for his role in laundering funds stolen by James Ibori, the former governor of Nigeria's Delta State, while confiscation proceedings against Ibori himself are still proceeding.
In 2001, Goldman decided to cut ties with Ibori and other African clients over suspicions and risks associated with them. Preko, who previously handled west African clients for Goldman, subsequently left the bank and directly took on Ibori as a client, setting up several corporate vehicles through which $3.9 million of stolen funds from the state were laundered, the NCA said in a Sept. 6 statement.
"Professional enablers such as Ellias Preko, who use their legitimate position within the finance industry to conceal the illicit funds of criminals and corrupt elites, are the lynchpin of the billions of dollars laundered through the U.K. each year," Kim Kitney, head of financial investigations at the NCA, said.
