Nigerian oil tycoon Walter Wagbatsoma jailed in the UK for diverting £13m NHS trust funds

A Nigerian oil tycoon was on Wednesday sentenced to three years and six months imprisonment for money laundering in the United Kingdom. He was also disqualified from being a company director for six years.

Walter Wagbatsoma, 47, was reportedly involved in an international conspiracy which swindled more than £13m from public services including Lincolnshire's mental health NHS trust. He personally benefited to the tune of £480,000 from four frauds.

Wagbatsoma and his co-conspirators rang up hospitals, councils, schools and housing associations posing as a legitimate building firm which was owed money by the organizations. They then claimed their bank details had changed and instructed the organizations to put the money into a different account instead. The money was then moved around several accounts in a bid to make it untraceable.

According to Lincolnshire police, the fraudulently obtained funds in the UK were laundered through an account in Dubai under the control of a co-conspirator Oluwatoyin Allison, a UK national who was convicted in his absence at an earlier trial in April 2017 and sentenced to seven years imprisonment. The funds were then transferred to Wagbatsoma’s account in the UK. 

The oil and gas businessman was originally detained on a European Arrest Warrant in June 2016 whilst travelling through Germany. He was extradited soon afterwards and charged with conspiring with others to launder the proceeds of fraud through his business interests in the UK.

Wagbatsoma was on trial in Nigeria at the time of his arrest for his part in a £1.9 billion oil subsidy fraud for which he was convicted and sentenced in his absence to 10-years imprisonment in January last year.