An American businessman has claimed that a Nigerian fraud gang promised to give him a $4 million payment on what turned to be a non-existent housing project.
Mr Terry Smith, owner of the American Plumbing Company in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that he was offered the $4 million if his company would receive $32 million into its bank account and claim that it had completed a Nigerian housing project.
It was the sixth day of the trial of five men alleged to have set up a fraudulent finance company to dupe Mr Smith into giving them a multi-million dollar payment.
Mr Smith said he had "strong suspicions" about the people involved and treated his correspondence to them as "kind of a hobby".
He told Mr Martin Giblin SC, for one of the accused, Mr Thomas O'Brien, that the Nigerians had contacted him, claiming that they were officials in the Works and Housing Ministry of the Nigerian government. They claimed that a foreign company involved in a large-scale housing project had gone bankrupt and they had completed the project themselves, but that they could not receive the $32 million for the project because they were government employees.
Mr Smith said they told him his company would receive $4 million if it agreed to be registered as having completed the project. He also received a fax, purportedly from the Nigerian Ministry of Works and Housing, which acknowledged that American Plumbing had paid income tax of more than $100,000 for profits made in the years 1995 to 1997.
He told the jury his Nigerian partners might have done this to allow American Plumbing to receive the $32 million payment.
He denied Mr Giblin's suggestion that he knew the scheme was bogus and that it was an attempt to "hoodwink" the Nigerian government. He said his partners later contacted him to tell him that he could collect the $32 million cheque through a Dublin-based company called World Wide Clearing and Finance.
Mr Smith said he also received a fax on Nigerian Central Bank notepaper confirming he would receive the payment through the World Wide Clearing and Finance office in Dublin.
Mr Smith said his attorney had warned him that other bogus offers had been sent from Nigeria to Baton Rouge businesses. His attorney also said the documents Mr Smith had received appeared to be "more genuine". He said he wanted to come to Ireland anyway, to see where his great-grandfather had come from.
Mr Giblin asked, to laughter from the public gallery, if Mr Smith was also hoping to pick up a $32 million payment while checking out his ancestors. Mr Smith said that he was suspicious and feared that the people involved were trying to take money from him. The day before he was to collect the $32 million cheque, he went to Baggot Street and confirmed that World Wide Clearing and Finance had an office there, as had been claimed.
The next day he went back to the offices and met a "Richard Holborn", who prosecutors claim was really Mr O'Brien. Mr Smith agreed that in his statement to gardai he said that "Holborn" spoke with an Irish accent but had said in direct evidence to the court that Holborn had either "an English or an Irish accent."
Mr Smith agreed with Mr Giblin that he could not distinguish between English, Irish and Scottish accents.
He said he was also introduced to a man calling himself David Baker, who prosecutors say was really another of the accused, Mr Obiora Uzodike.
They went to the Terenure branch of Bank of Ireland and "David Baker" disappeared before returning with a $32 million bank draft made out in the name of "either Terry Smith or American Plumbing".
They returned to the World Wide Clearing and Finance office and a man claiming to be an auditor told Mr Smith that he would have to pay $2 million to have the Nigerian housing project completed. He would then receive the $4 million dollars promised to him.
Mr Smith said that two days later he went to the US embassy to report what had happened but discovered it was closed for the weekend. He denied Mr Giblin's suggestion that he did not know what the embassy looked like because he had never been there.
Mr Smith agreed with Mr Diarmaid McGuinness SC, for Mr Uzodike, that American Plumbing had never done any work outside of Louisiana and Tennessee and had never paid taxes in Nigeria. He denied he was deliberately using false information to get payments from the Nigerian government.
He agreed he had a contract with the businessmen in Nigeria but could not recall the details. He denied he had withheld the contract when Det Garda Ronan Galligan visited him at his Baton Rouge offices.
The accused are: Mr Christian Obumneme (35), Prussia Street, Dublin; Mr Thomas; Mr Anthony O'Brien (61) of Kent Walk, London; Mr Raymond Folkes (38) of Dunstans Road, London; Mr Achike Okigbo (26), of Blessington Street, Dublin, and Mr Uzodike (29) of Oak Court Avenue, Palmerstown. They have all pleaded not guilty to trying to defraud Mr Heinz Althoff by forming a fraudulent company.
The alleged offence also includes forging or counterfeiting US dollar drafts in large amounts and is alleged to have occurred between February 1st, 1999 and March 3rd, 1999.
The five are also charged that, between the same dates, they claimed they had bank drafts in their possession worth $32 million and sought $2 million from Mr Smith in exchange for them.
Messrs O'Brien, Folkes, Obumneme and Uzodike are also charged with trying to obtain money by false pretences using documents purporting to be international bank drafts made out for multi-million dollar sums.
The trial is expected to last up to five weeks before Judge Patrick McCartan.