Olam Group has paid a huge bail bond of N1 billion to secure the release of one of its directors in Nigeria, Prakash Kanth. Olam Group is a leading
Olam Group has paid a huge bail bond of N1 billion to secure the release of one of its directors in Nigeria, Prakash Kanth.
Olam Group is a leading food and agri-business conglomerate with offices in about 60 countries and supplying food and industrial raw materials such as cocoa, beans, cofee, cotton etc. to over 20,900 customers worldwide.
Its value chain includes farming, origination, processing and distribution operations.
One of Olam’s many subsidiaries, Micro Feed Nigeria Limited, Lagos, paid the money in connection with the ongoing investigation of money laundering involving Kanth.
Kanth, who spent days in DSS detention facility in Abuja, is Olam’s director of Corporate Affairs and Legal in Nigeria.
The payment was made into a special recovery account operated by the Department of State Security, DSS.
Other top executives of the company reportedly fled the country in the wake of the arrest of the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele and his accomplices.
The DSS requested the humongous bail bond because of the gravity of the allegations against the company and the amount involved.
The money was paid into a Treasury Single Account, TSA, domiciled at Access Bank on Monday.
The DSS had opened a probe into Olam’s multibillion dollar FX deals from 2015 to date. It also requesting from Olam, evidence of payment of tax, corporate tax income, VAT, export proceeds and capital importation by the company and its subsidiaries during the period under review.
The secret police also requested from the company an analysis of all forex outflows from 2015 to date, showing commercial banks involved and the beneficiaries of the forex and the Bureau de Change, BDC license issued to Olam Nigeria Limited or any of its subsidiaries.
It also requested records of the company’s expatriate quota list of the approved expatriates and particulars of serving and former MDs, CFOs and financial controllers of the company, including their names, addresses and countries of residence.
