Middleman Involved in Alleged Lekoil Scam Investigating Matter
Middleman Involved in Alleged Lekoil Scam Investigating Matter
Seawave Invest Ltd., which was paid $600,000 by Lekoil Ltd. for arranging financing from Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, is investigating allegations of fraud after it emerged the loan wasn’t real.
The companies are caught in a whirlwind after Lekoil alleged this week that people claiming to be from Qatar Investment Authority were in fact fraudsters, meaning the $184 million loan key to the development of an oil field in Nigeria would not materialize. Lekoil had announced the debt earlier this year and paid consultant Seawave the commission for introducing it to people purportedly from the Qatari fund.
Seawave said it wouldn’t comment until its own assessment and investigation on the matter were complete. It didn’t directly respond to questions about the commission.
The firm is based in Accra, Ghana, according to its website. It also lists an office number in the Bahamas that goes to the voicemail of law firm Holowesko Pyfrom Fletcher.
A Bloomberg reporter found Seawave’s Accra address in the heart of the city was empty. There was a phone number on the door of the first-floor office in a modern development. The number was answered by a facilities manager who couldn’t confirm if Seawave had previously rented the space.
‘No Knowledge’
Holowesko Pyfrom Fletcher “is instructed by the company’s directors to state that whatever acts may have been done by persons purporting to represent the company neither the company nor any of its officers and directors have any knowledge or involvement in such acts,” the law firm said in a statement on Tuesday.
It also said that neither Seawave nor its directors or officers have come into the possession of any proceeds in connection with the matter, adding it would cooperate with the Bahamian authorities if needed.
Seawave sent Bloomberg the statement after a request for comment from Bismark Abrafi, who lists himself as the firm’s managing partner. Abrafi is also involved with several other companies about which very little information is publicly available.
The episode raises questions about Lekoil’s “due diligence capacity,” analysts at Numis Corp. wrote in a Jan. 14 note. It also means the company has no funding for its Ogo field offshore Lagos in Nigeria, and has “most likely lost the $600,000 in fees,” the research firm said.
The oil company was forced to suspend trading on Monday, and the stock slumped 73% when it resumed on Tuesday.
Lekoil has appointed independent non-executive directors Tony Hawkins and former British MP Mark Simmonds to investigate the origination and execution of the loan agreement and review whether any of the money paid can be retrieved. Hawkins didn’t respond to a request for comment, while Simmonds declined to comment via a representative for Block Commodities, whose board he also serves on.
--With assistance from Yinka Ibukun.
To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Hurst in London at lhurst3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Herron at jherron9@bloomberg.net, Rakteem Katakey
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