Controversial Nigerian oil tycoon, Kola Aluko (right) has sold
his Bel-Air, Los Angeles mansion, as Nigerian and European authorities
investigate him for alleged series of money-laundering and fraud-related crimes,
Forbes reports, quoting The Los Angeles Times.
The
46-year-old sold the home last week for $21.5 million, taking a $3
million loss after purchasing the sprawling residence in 2012 for $24.5
million. Aluko apparently sold the mansion in an off-market transaction
using a limited-liability company.
Aluko's
former home - a contemporary-style showplace in the 700 block of
Sabonne Road, Los Angeles, was designed by architect Paul McClean and
built in 2011. The property sits on more than an acre, has a gated
entrance, a subterranean garage and a 132-square-foot infinity-edge
swimming pool among other features.
For
a long time, Aluko had been linked as a business associate of Nigeria's
former Petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, who is currently
under investigation by Nigerian and British authorities for money
laundering and embezzlement.
Shortly
after she became oil minister in 2010, Alisonm-Madueke awarded Atlantic
Energy - an unknown start-up co-founded by Aluko, a very lucrative
contract to fund NNPC's operational costs in four lucrative oil blocks
in which the NNPC owned a stake.
In
return for providing funding to the NNPC, Atlantic Energy was to lift
the crude produced from the oil blocks, sell it, and thereafter pay the
state-owned oil firm its share of profits.
But
there is an allegation and considerable proof that Atlantic Energy did
not make any upfront funding but lifted crude and that a huge chunk of
the proceeds from the sale of the crude did not make it to NNPC's
coffers and, by extention, the Nigerian treasury.
An email to Kola Aluko to confirm the sale of his Bel-Air property was not responded to as at the time of this report.
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