4. Chagoury was named a “kingpin”
of Nigerian corruption. In July 2004, Nigeria’s then-top anti-corruption prosecutor, Nuhu Ribadu, watched as Chagoury’s private jet landed and then, abruptly, took off — allowing the corrupt businessman to escape arrest.
Ribadu’s office spent years building a corruption case against Chagoury, who was once a senior adviser to Nigeria’s longtime dictator Sani Abacha. According to a PBS Frontline report , “Ribadu says that Chagoury made it possible for Abacha to steal billions of dollars and lined his own pockets in the process.”
5. Chagoury admitted in British court
to bribery.
In 2001, the construction magnate
confessed in a British court to assisting the family of deceased Nigerian dictator, Sani Abacha, in transferring $300 million into foreign bank accounts. Despite Chagoury’s many troubling transgressions, the Clinton Foundation gladly accepted a $1-$5 million donation from the nefarious figure.
It is also worth noting that Chagoury’s company, the Chagoury Group, pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative in 2009, the same year the Clinton Global Initiative awarded the Chagoury Group its annual prize for “sustainable development.” The money pledged was at the heart of Sen. David Vitter’s (R) probe into whether Chagoury’s cozy relationship with the Clintons played a roll inClinton’s State Department’s delay of a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation on Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram; an FTO classification would have severely hampered Chagoury’s business endeavors in Nigeria.
