COURT ORDERS SEIZURE OF POUNDS 3M 'DRUG MONEY'

A COURT yesterday ruled that almost pounds 3 million in cash brought into
Britain from Nigeria by a businessman could be kept by the Government as it
was likely to have come from drug trafficking.

The cash was forfeited under civil law and the man who brought it in did
not face criminal prosecution. Customs and Excise said the case was by far
the largest it had mounted under the 1994 Drug Trafficking Act - which
allows it to detain cash and apply to a court for its forfeiture if there
is a suspicion that it comes from drug trafficking.

The man who lost the money in a ruling by magistrates at Uxbridge in west
London had contested the case. Alhaji Daura claimed the pounds 2,998,700 -
in pounds 50 notes in three pieces of luggage which he brought from Nigeria
to Heathrow on his private jet on March 15 last year - was to buy a
consignment of rice he intended to export to Nigeria.

Customs investigators, who suspected that the money was the proceeds of
drug trafficking, produced evidence discrediting his story. A spokesman
said it was shown that documents put forward by Mr Daura were forgeries.
They purported to show he had obtained the money from transactions at a
bureau de change in Lagos, Nigeria. But Customs investigators found the
bureau did not issue the cash.