On Thursday, the federal government of Nigeria arraigned two Chief Executives of Telecom Satellites Limited (TSTV) at the Federal High Court in Abuja over charges of tax evasion, money laundering, and advanced fee fraud.<\/p>\n
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The accused, Dr. Bright Ikechukwu Echefu, Managing Director and CEO of TSTV, and Dr. Felix Nnamdi Ignoanuga, Executive Director of the company, were brought to trial alongside TSTV and Briechberg Investment Limited by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on nine counts of criminal charges.<\/p>\n
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The charges include money laundering, unremitted VAT, company income tax, and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) deductions from the salaries of 165 workers. These offenses are punishable under Section 15 of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2011, as amended in 2012. The accused allegedly diverted N33.9 million, N13.5 million, and N19.4 million intended for tax payments to their personal use on May 18, 2020.<\/p>\n
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Dr. Bright Ikechukwu Echefu faces additional charges of defrauding Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Turaki Kabir Tanimu, of N960 million under false pretenses. Echefu, acting as Managing Director of Briechberg Investment Limited, allegedly obtained N150 million, N380 million, and N400 million from Tanimu on May 18, 2020, purportedly as a loan to acquire modern equipment for TSTV. The funds were deposited into Briechberg Investment Limited’s Zenith Bank account. On the same day, Tanimu made two additional payments of N15 million each into the same account.<\/p>\n
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Turaki Kabir Tanimu SAN, a former Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, was present in court during the arraignment.<\/p>\n
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Both accused persons denied the fraud charges when read to them. Prosecutor Sylvanus Tahir, SAN, objected to the bail application made by defense attorney Eyitayo Fatigun, SAN, citing the defendants as flight risks. Fatigun countered, noting that the EFCC had previously granted the accused administrative bail.<\/p>\n
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Justice Inyang Edem Ekwo ruled to adopt the EFCC’s bail conditions, allowing the defendants to go home but ordering them not to leave the country without court permission. Their international passports were to be seized, and any breach of bail conditions would result in revocation and detention throughout the trial period. The EFCC was directed to submit the record of administrative bail to the court within seven days.<\/p>\n
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The trial is set to commence on July 15, 16, and 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Thursday, the federal government of Nigeria arraigned two Chief Executives of Telecom Satellites Limited (TSTV) at the Federal High Court in Abuja over charges of tax evasion, money laundering, and advanced fee fraud. The accused, Dr. Bright Ikechukwu Echefu, Managing Director and CEO of TSTV, and Dr. Felix Nnamdi Ignoanuga, Executive Director of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":33988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33983"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33994,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33983\/revisions\/33994"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}