A Chinese firm named Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Ltd has finalised repossession of a luxury jet owned by Nigeria in Canada.
This comes days after the company confiscated the country’s guest houses in Liverpool, United Kingdom in its bid to recover up to $70 million in arbitration awards from the West Africa country.
Peoples Gazette reports that the firm recently received a change of custodian paperwork for the Bombardier 6000 type BD-700-1A10 aircraft from Canadian authorities in Montreal, months after a Canadian court issued a judgement that empowered Zhongchang to seize the jet from Nigeria.
“The court granted orders for Zhongshang to seize the plane earlier this year, but the change of custody from Nigeria to Zhongshang was only recently concluded.
Zhongshang will not stop seizing Nigeria’s assets worldwide until the last cent of the arbitration awards has been paid,” a source told the news outlet.
Judge David Collier of the Superior Court of Quebec had on March 21, 2024, quashed Nigeria’s arguments to keep ownership of the aircraft, which records showed was purchased for $57 million by fugitive Dan Etete as part of his spending binge shortly after netting over $350 million windfall from the lucrative but corrupt sale of OPL 245 oil field in 2010.
Nigeria first seized the aircraft, with tail number M-MYNA and serial number 9471, from Mr Etete in 2016 and trapped it in Dubai. Flight tracking websites showed it was then flown suddenly to Canada on May 29, 2020, where Nigeria quickly obtained a court order for seizure and held it at the main airport in Montreal.
With the Bombardier luxury aircraft now in its possession, Zhongshang has successfully seized Nigeria’s assets in the UK, France and Canada, where the country’s guest houses, presidential jets and the Etete jet have been confiscated, respectively — with potentially more seizures expected in Belgium and the U.S. in the coming weeks.
