By SCM REPORTER I Saturday, January 23
A COCKY finance boss and his firm have been ordered to pay back nearly £1million after a judge found them guilty of a massive share-selling scam.
Victor Ogiemwonyi, the high-flying Chairman of Partnership Securities Limited, was hauled before a court in Lagos, Nigeria, for pocketing a fortune that didn’t belong to him.
The court heard how Ogiemwonyi was trusted by client Arnold Onyekwere Ekpe to sell off a whopping 96 million units of Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI) shares.
The shares sold for a staggering N1.3 billion—but when it came time to hand over the cash, the greedy boss went cold.
Investigators from the EFCC revealed that instead of passing on the full amount, the defendants handed over just N300 million.
The rest? A cool N953 million (approx.
£450,000) and an extra $80,000 in dividends were “dishonestly diverted” for personal use.
The victim, Mr. Ekpe, raised the alarm back in 2016 when he realized his bank balance was looking a lot lighter than it should have been.
On Wednesday, Justice Modupe Nicole-Clay saw right through the defense’s story.
Despite Ogiemwonyi calling three witnesses to try and save his skin, the judge convicted him and his company on two counts of stealing.
The price of his greed?
Ogiemwonyi was slapped with a N10 million fine. His company was ordered to pay N20 million.
CRUCIALLY: The judge ordered the duo to pay back every single penny and cent stolen from Mr. Ekpe.
The prosecution team, who brought 67 pieces of evidence to court, hailed the result as a victory against boardroom bandits.
