The UK High Court of Justice at King’s Bench Division has granted a forfeiture order on a property occupied by the Lord Mayor of Leeds, Abigail Katung, PREMIUM TIMES can exclusively report.
The court ordered the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) to take possession and recover the property, which was originally owned by a wealthy businessman, Mansoor Hussain. Investigators have previously accused him of being a money launderer for major crime lords in the north of England.
Mrs Katung, the wife of Sunday Katung, Nigerian senator representing Kaduna South Senatorial District, currently occupies the property with her two children.
She had signed a Contract of Sale agreement in 2015, the year her husband was first elected to the House of Representatives, to buy the property from Mr Hussain at an agreed price of £1,000,000.
As part of the deal, Mrs Katung made a deposit of £400,000 in two tranches: £ 40,000 in the first and £ 360,000 in the second, which were paid to Mr Hussain’s bank account.
UK court filings, obtained by PREMIUM TIMES, suggested money laundering activities in Mrs Katung’s initial deposit, which was made between April and May 2015, several days after her husband’s election and days before his June inauguration as a lawmaker.
The UK High Court investigated the source of £360,000 originating from Nigeria with Mrs Katung explaining that due to the new government policies in 2015, she used the black market to transfer funds from Nigeria to England. She said some of the funds were sourced by her husband.
However, there are questions regarding the transfer process, and Mrs Katung did not disclose documentation to prove that the transaction was lawful.
In an oral interview, she told the court that her husband obtained a loan of N120 million from a Nigerian bank and then used a Bureau De Change Operator (BDCs) in Nigeria to exchange naira into pounds sterling and remit it to a Barclays bank account in the name of 1st Resource, a company owned by Mrs Katung.
Mrs Katung sent the court extracts from bank statements purportedly showing transfers her husband made to Bureau de Change operators in Nigeria, who then used agents in the UK to get the money to her via her company’s account of 1st Resource.
The judge held that the use of Mrs Katung’s company for the purpose of that transaction was improper but the Mayoress of Leeds maintained that she did that because it was easier to transfer from a company account than a personal account.
The court also found that the majority of payments made into the bank account of 1st Resource could not have been from UK agents of BDCs in Nigeria.
Mrs Katung told the court that in addition to the agents, she relied to a limited extent on family and friends to assist her with currency exchanges and make the payments.
Not satisfied with Mrs Katung’s oral explanation and that of her lawyer, the judge said she should prepare her defence and provide an “adequate, documented explanation” of what happened in 2015.
“She has failed to do that,” the judge said, adding, “It was incumbent on her to take proactive steps to ensure that a properly evidenced account was given to the Court.”
“Surprisingly, Mrs Katung’s witness statements in these proceedings did not address how the payments were made, nor did they seek to explain what she had said at interview. More surprisingly, Mrs Katung has disclosed very little documentation which bears on these transfers, and there is no witness statement from her husband. These are telling omissions from which I draw an adverse inference,” the judge said.
At the hearing, Mrs Katung sought to rely on an attestation from one Mubarak Suleiman of My Honey Oil Interbiz Ltd, which purports to prove that her husband was a client of Honey Oil and a licensed Bureau de Change in Nigeria.
However, using open source research, investigators said the Central Bank of Nigeria’s list of licensed Bureau de Change as of June 2021 shows no trace of Honey Oil.
Therefore, the judge ruled that Mrs Katung was only “conducting a business in foreign exchange transactions to circumvent Nigerian foreign exchange regulations and/or to avoid a punitive exchange rate.”
The judge added that he was satisfied on the “balance of probabilities” that some of the BDCs mentioned by Mrs Katung were not even licensed to undertake foreign exchange transactions in Nigeria.
“I reach my conclusion on the basis of: (1) paragraph 72 of Mr Coles’ eighth witness statement (2) the adverse inferences to be drawn from the Honey Oil material, and (3) the adverse inferences to be drawn from Mrs Katung’s failure to file a witness statement from her husband and to disclose relevant documentation,” the judge said.
The NCA contends that the entire property, including the deposit made by Mrs Katung, represented money obtained by criminal conduct. Hence, the property was recoverable property under the UK Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA).
In his judgement, delivered on 6 June, Justice Jay ruled that the property and its possession should be recovered by the NCA.
The judge noted that the civil recovery order, which has already been made in the NCA’s favour under section 266 of POCA, should be treated as vesting the entirety of the property in the Trustee.
“And that no credit falls to be given for the value of the deposit payments made by Mrs Katung.”
Mrs Katung’s lawyer conceded that with this conclusion, his client’s sums in question would have to be treated as “recoverable property” for the purposes of the POCA regime.
However, the judge shielded Mrs Katung from having any knowledge of Mr Hussain’s criminal activities.
“Understandably, Mrs Katung is concerned about the impact that this judgment may have upon her reputation, and I therefore make it crystal-clear that I do not find that she was cognisant of what Mr Hussain was up to,” the judge said.
The NCA is now entitled to an order for possession of the property, he added.
“I invite the parties to draw up an order which reflects the foregoing as well as any additional financial remedies to which the NCA may claim to be entitled. If the parties cannot agree on those remedies, I will determine them following further submissions. Finally, the NCA is entitled to its costs.”
Born in Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria, Mrs Katung came to the UK to study at the University of Leeds.
She is now the Lady Mayoress of Leeds. She took over the role from Al Garthwaite to become the city’s 130th lord mayor in 2024 and the first person of African descent to hold the position.
The councillor is supported by her husband, Sunday Katung, a serving senator and former member of the House of Representatives.
“Since arriving in Leeds in 2000, the city quickly became my cherished second home,” Mrs Katung was quoted as saying in 2024.
PREMIUM TIMES
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