Shell in Nigerian corruption scandal

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9 April 2017

New leaked emails put Shell at centre of billion dollar bribery scheme involving some of the most powerful officials in Nigeria.

Shell’s most senior executives were told payments for a massive oil block would go to a convicted money-launderer, and then likely flow to then President Goodluck Jonathan and others, but still went through with the deal. Share to expose.

Find out more and see the full investigation: here.

Translated from Dutch daily NRC:

‘Shell bigwigs knew of bribery in Nigeria’

Corruption

Internal emails indicate corruption around an oil deal in Nigeria. Shell CEO Van Beurden was wiretapped by the Dutch financial police.

Joris Kooiman

April 11, 2017

There are very strong indications that Shell managers knew that the oil company paid a convicted money launderer hundreds of millions of euros to get a billion euro concession in Nigeria. It was clear that some of the money would be used for bribes.

The Italian business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore and the US news site BuzzFeed conclude based on internal e-mails, which they have received from anti-corruption organization Global Witness, that the company management was aware of corruption. The documents published online, which refer specifically to bribery and payments to a company of a convicted former minister of oil affairs, confirm those conclusions. …

The revelations come at a painful moment for Shell. Next week Thursday in Milan a hearing will begin which will determine whether there wil be a court case. Besides Shell also Italian energy company Eni is in the dock.

In 2011, Shell and Eni paid the Nigerian government $ 1.3 billion for the rights to the oil field OPL 245, on the Nigerian coast, with an estimated presence of over 9 billion barrels of oil. Italian and Dutch authorities suspected for some time that corruption was involved, something which Shell has always denied. Early last year the [financial police] FIOD because of this raided the Shell headquarters in The Hague.

Ben van Beurden bugged

It now appears that the investigation service that day has tapped telephone conversations of Ben van Beurden. In these, the current chief executive of Shell refers to the existence of potentially incriminating material. …

The suspicion is that much of the billion amount for the concession Shell paid has disappeared into the pockets of Dan Etete, a former oil minister who was sentenced in absentia in France in 2007 for money laundering.

From the publications of Buzz Feed and Il Sole 24 Ore it now turns out that the Shell top directors were aware of this risk. Writes former member of the Board Malcolm Brinded on October 11, 2010, three years after the conviction of Etete, in an e-mail to colleagues that the deal “has the advantage that Malabu will receive more than 1 billion.”

Malabu is Etete’s company who as oil minister in the late nineties granted a deepwater concession for just $ 20 million to Malabu. So, to himself. The Nigerian government annulled the concession, after which the rights were subject of a long legal battle.

To get the deal Shell employed two former employees of the British secret service MI6. In mutual emails they discussed the possibility to arrange a British visa for “E” and the need to show that they regard him as a “potential partner”. They discuss a hunting trip for Etete in Europe to build trust.

In another e-mail bribery is mentioned explicitly. “Mrs. E says E claims thatonly 40m of the 300m we will provide is for him. The rest is for bribing people.”

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