The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has actually apprehended an Abuja-based business owner, Innocent Ozoemena Ezuma, over claims that he defrauded a Ukrainian financier of more than $120m in a plan apparently covering almost twenty years.
The 57-year-old entrepreneur was apprehended in Abuja on Monday, October 19, 2026, and stays in the commission’s custody, according to the EFCC spokesperson, Dele Oyewale, who validated the arrest on Tuesday.
Ezuma is being examined for supposed advance cost scams, criminal breach of trust, criminal conversion, acquiring cash under false pretenses, theft and cash laundering.
The arrest apparently followed partnership with global private investigators and details provided by whistleblowers within his organisation.
According to information of the examination, the EFCC declares that Ezuma got 10s of countless dollars from the Ukrainian financier in between 2007 and 2015 to fund mineral expedition and power tasks that were presumably never ever performed.
The funds were supposedly diverted for individual usage, triggering detectives to analyze the entrepreneur’s monetary deals and declared motion of cash to business and people connected to him.
Specific attention has actually been drawn to deals including his kids and other partners, with private investigators believing that a few of the transfers might have belonged to a money-laundering plan.
Among the business under examination is Battregen Limited, supposedly managed by Ezuma’s 28-year-old boy, Bogdan Ekene Ezuma.
Private investigators presumably found that the business got N1.365 bn in supposed loans in between February and April 2025, regardless of tape-recording no earnings throughout the duration.
The EFCC is likewise analyzing a supposed N953m transfer to the more youthful Ezuma in July 2025, out of which just N90m was supposedly returned.
More examinations supposedly exposed transfers varying from N48m to N50m to Ezuma’s 26-year-old child, Bozhena Ezuma, in addition to a relative and service partner, Victor Ezuma.
The payments supposedly did not have recognizable genuine organization functions, according to the information of the claims.
The commission is anticipated to develop the sources of the funds, the functions of the deals and whether the receivers were intentionally associated with any supposed monetary criminal offense.
The examination likewise centres on the business owner’s transactions with the Ukrainian financier, who supposedly suffered significant property losses following Russia’s intrusion of Ukraine in 2022.
Detectives declare that Ezuma consequently participated in organization negotiations with Inter RAO UES, a Russian state-owned business, including mineral exploitation and energy tasks.
The scenarios surrounding the deals, consisting of the motion of funds and the status of the suggested jobs, become part of the accusations being taken a look at.
The case likewise encompasses Ezuma’s earlier company activities in Ukraine and Nigeria, recommending that detectives are analyzing a wider pattern of service negotiations going back to the mid-2000s.
In another claims, Ezuma was implicated of encouraging 2 Ukrainian business owners to offer funds for the privatisation of the Jos Steel Rolling Mill in Plateau State.
The accusations specify that he consequently presumed special control of the center, removed it of properties and deserted numerous employees without paying their earnings.
The claims, if developed, might expose more information about the business person’s earlier business activities and the scenarios surrounding the collapse of the steel center.
A file detailing the claims likewise declared that Ezuma stayed in Nigeria in spite of an Interpol red notification.
The situations surrounding the reported notification and its existing status were not individually developed in the product offered.
The EFCC’s examination is anticipated to identify the level of the supposed monetary deals, determine the recipients of the funds and develop whether criminal offenses were devoted
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