{"id":72126,"date":"2025-08-05T15:01:31","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T15:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=72126"},"modified":"2025-08-05T15:03:04","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T15:03:04","slug":"court-orders-forfeiture-of-bentley-venza-in-internet-fraud-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/08\/05\/court-orders-forfeiture-of-bentley-venza-in-internet-fraud-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Orders Forfeiture of Bentley, Venza in Internet Fraud Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Adenike Lawal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered the permanent forfeiture of a white Bentley Coupe and a blue Toyota Venza linked to suspected internet fraudster German Onoriede.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Dehinde Dipeolu issued the order following an ex-parte motion filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).<\/p>\n<p>The motion was supported by an affidavit from EFCC investigator Bufa Okangbe, who stated that the vehicles were seized during a raid on August 14, 2023, at Ocean Bay Estate, Lekki, Lagos.<\/p>\n<p>Although Onoriede escaped arrest during the operation, the EFCC recovered the vehicles from his residence.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators later traced the purchase of the Bentley to funds suspected to be proceeds of internet fraud.<\/p>\n<p>Further investigation revealed multiple local and foreign bank accounts linked to the suspect, with over \u20a6500 million traced to the accounts between 2018 and 2023.<\/p>\n<p>In a related ruling, Justice Dipeolu also granted an interim forfeiture order on a sky-blue Nissan Almera and cash totaling $20,000 and CFA 110,000.<\/p>\n<p>The order followed a separate motion supported by an affidavit from another EFCC investigator, Solomon Usman.<\/p>\n<p>According to Usman, on July 13, 2025, a suspect was intercepted by Nigeria Customs Service officers at Seme Border in Badagry.<\/p>\n<p>The suspect abandoned the Nissan Almera and fled into the bush. Upon inspection, foreign currencies were found hidden inside the vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>The EFCC told the court that the assets were likely proceeds of unlawful activity and requested the interim forfeiture. Justice Dipeolu granted the request and ordered that a public notice be published to allow any interested party to contest the forfeiture before it becomes final.<\/p>\n<p>The rulings underscore the EFCC\u2019s ongoing efforts to combat cybercrime and recover assets linked to financial misconduct.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Adenike Lawal A Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered the permanent forfeiture of a white Bentley Coupe and a blue Toyota Venza linked to suspected internet fraudster German Onoriede. Justice Dehinde Dipeolu issued the order following an ex-parte motion filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The motion was supported by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":72128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72126","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\/72126","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\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72127,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72126\/revisions\/72127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}