The U.S. Justice Department on Friday filed a lawsuit seeking to recover assets that include a $50 million Manhattan apartment and an $80 million yacht that it said were bought using money generated from a scheme to pay millions of dollars in bribes to a former Nigerian oil minister.
The civil lawsuit, filed in federal court in Houston, alleged that two Nigerian businessmen conspired with others to pay bribes to the minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, who oversaw the African country’s state-owned oil company.
The lawsuit said that in return, Alison-Madueke steered lucrative contracts with a subsidiary of Nigerian National Petroleum Corp to companies owned by the two businessmen, Kolawole Akanni Aluko and Olajide Omokore.
Despite being unqualified and in some instances failing entirely to perform services under the contracts, these companies received more than $1.5…
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