The Federal High Court in Lagos has issued the final forfeiture of 2,041,087,747 units of shares in Livingtrust Mortgage Bank Plc linked to Cititrust Holdings Plc
The shares, which are valued at N6.67 billion and the sum of N42.46 million, all linked to Cititrust Holdings Plc and its subsidiaries, are to be forfeited.
Justice F.N. Ogazi of the Federal High Court of Lagos issued this order following the motion filed by Ahmad A. Usman, on behalf of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
According to the EFCC legal representative, Ahmad A. Usman, the shares were purchased using investors’ money as Cititrust Holding and several of its subsidiaries were being prosecuted by the EFCC for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme and duping investors of large sums of funds.
In an attempt to retain the assets, Cititrust contested the motion and filed an affidavit to challenge the EFCC’s application. However, the court concluded that Cititrust submissions are not substantial enough as EFCC has provided compelling evidence to ascertain the fraudulent source of the assets.
Earlier, the court had granted EFCC an interim forfeiture order on the assets, mandating the publication of these orders in national newspapers to allow interested parties to challenge the order and provide evidence for the assets to not be permanently forfeited.
The court granted the final forfeiture of these assets and mandated that the forfeited assets should be used to compensate duped investors and the remaining balance should be forfeited to the federal government of Nigeria.
