US Luxury Real Estate Traced to Nigeria’s Dasukigate

Former Nigerian National Security Adviser embezzled millions designated for fighting Boko Haram into luxury US properties.

An investigation by the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF) uncovered millions of dollars connected to former Nigerian National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, were invested in American real estate. Dasuki was previously indicted for misappropriating over 2 billion USD intended for use in the fight against Boko Haram. Allegedly, tens of millions of dollars Dasuki stole from Nigerian government coffers ended up in luxury real estate in Los Angeles, California and in McLean, Virginia, an opulent suburb of Washington, DC.

The investigation is based on thousands of pages of property deeds, company registration materials, bank transaction records, and court documents obtained and analysed by PPLAAF. The findings were shared with the Premium Times and The Washington Post who retraced some of the key financial dealings between Dasuki’s office and Robert and Mimie Oshodin, Dasuki’s family friends. The investigations further confirmed claims made by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria’s anti-graft agency, which arraigned the Oshodin couple on 25 counts of money laundering in August 2019.

Dasukigate

Sambo Dasuki was born into Nigerian royalty as the son of the Sultan Sokoto. He studied in the US before ascending the ranks of the Nigerian military. In June 2012, Dasuki, a retired army colonel at the time, was appointed National Security Adviser to Nigeria’s then-president Goodluck Jonathan. Dasuki was tasked with leading the government’s response to the terror group Boko Haram, which was causing widespread violence and displacement in northeastern Nigeria and neighbouring Cameroon, Chad, and Niger.

However, according to Nigerian law enforcement, Dasuki was responsible for misdirecting over 2 billion USD from funds intended for the fight against Boko Haram through phoney defence procurement agreements and spurious contracts. When Muhammadu Buhari came to power in 2015, the newly elected president fired Dasuki. The government subsequently arrested Dasuki in connection with the scandal, which is commonly referred to as Dasukigate. In 2019, Dasuki was released on bail only to be re-arraigned in 2022, where he pleaded not guilty.

Over the three years of Dasuki’s tenure, his office managed to make dozens of transfers of millions of dollars into the bank accounts of his family friend Robert Oshodin, a Nigerian furniture manufacturer based in the US, and Oshodin’s wife, Mimie. The Oshodins and the Dasuki family had a close relationship going back decades, with the Oshodins acting as legal guardians of Dasuki’s children in the US. The relationship was not just personal, though; it also included entangled financial interests.

Lavish Lifestyles, Magnificent Mansions

PPLAAF identified numerous assets linked to Dasukigate. Shortly after his appointment as National Security Adviser in 2012, Dasuki started transferring large sums to the Oshodins, who, around this time, started making substantial real estate investments in the US states of California and Virginia.

Documents reviewed by the Premium Times newspaper show these payments were made for “consulting services” and “special ops,” as well as for the “provision of [a] counter-radicalisation campaign.” The investigation alleged that Dasuki and the Oshodin couple conspired to embezzle over 100 billion Nigerian dollars (about 64 million USD) from the Nigerian government at a time when Boko Haram was violently terrorising the nation’s population, notably kidnapping 276 school girls in the Borno State of Nigeria in April 2014.

Between 2008 and 2012, the Oshodins spent around 1.6 million USD in total on five properties in California and Nevada, obtaining loans for some of the properties. However, their real estate investment behaviour radically changed after receiving bank transfers from the office of the National Security Adviser. According to the Premium Times, in a single week, the Oshodins bought two properties in cash for 16 million USD with the help of Dasuki.

The property bought by Oshodin couple in Los Angeles, shortly after receiving funds from Dasuki [Source: Bob Riha, Jr, Premium Times]

The Premium Times Investigation further explains that documents of the EFCC indictment of the Oshodin couple outlined several bank transfers, including a 7.7 million USD wire transfer to the US from Nigerian government funds. This transfer took place within days of the couple buying, in cash, a 9.5 million USD mansion in Los Angeles, California.

Excerpt from a property deed showing the Oshodins company purchase the mansion in McLean, Virginia for 6.5 million USD [Source: Premium Times]

In June 2019, Nigerian law enforcement officials arrested Mimie Oshodin on money-laundering charges, accusing her and her furniture company of having received more than 57 million USD in national security funds from Dasuki. She pleaded not guilty. Mimie was released on bail two months later, while her husband appears to have remained out of Nigerian law enforcement officials’ reach.

During Dasuki’s tenure as National Security Adviser, the Oshodins spent approximately 24 million USD on real estate in the US, often corresponding with large transfers from Dasuki’s office. The largest of these real estate transactions was the purchase of a 9.5 million USD mansion in Los Angeles the very same day Dasuki’s office transferred 12 million USD into an account held in the name of the Oshodin couple’s furniture business in Nigeria. In 2022, the Oshodins sold the McLean mansion at a loss to purchase a smaller mansion, also in McLean. As the Premium Times said, “Just as the Oshodins’ investment activities spiked when Mr. Dasuki took office, their approach changed again after he left office and faced legal scrutiny.”

Furthermore, according to court filings obtained by PPLAAF, the Oshodins stored tens of millions of dollars’ worth of jewellery in a mansion in Los Angeles, including a ring worth over 3 million USD, and millions of dollars more in furnishing and antiquities. Premium Times calculated that between their American real estate and valuables, including jewellery, identified in the court filings, the couple’s wealth exceeded 40 million USD at the end of Dasuki’s tenure.

As of today, the couple still owns houses in Los Angeles and McLean valued at 20 million USD. The Los Angeles mansion is for sale for 12.88 million USD, as of January 2025.

“Dirty Money Finds its Haven”

The allegations against Dasuki underscore how, as Steve Thompson of The Washington Post puts it, “The U.S. real estate market has become a money-laundering haven for corrupt officials and criminals across the world, a place to hide their case behind opaque shell companies.”

In 2018, Nigerian law enforcement informed U.S. authorities about the allegations against Dasuki and the Oshodins, imploring the Department of Justice to follow the money. The Oshodins continued to buy and sell additional homes after the American authorities were informed of the allegations.

The Nigerian government’s investigation into the Oshodin couple suggests that there are significant gaps in the US’s effort to keep dirty money out of its property market. In 2024, the US took additional measures to target illicit financial flows into real estate. This new rule requires title companies and others to collect information about certain real estate sales, specifically for transactions where the buyer is a trust or other legal entity and pays in cash.

Equally concerning, the Nigerian government is still struggling to recover assets and prosecute cases linked to the Dasukigate scandal, with significant coordination issues and judicial delays. The Dasukigate scandal thus remains a critical test for Nigeria’s commitment to fighting corruption.

About PPLAAF

The Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa is a non-governmental organization established in 2017 to protect whistleblowers and advocate and engage in strategic litigation on their behalf when their revelations deal with the general interests of African citizens.

For more information on the organization, please visit our website at https://pplaaf.org and follow us on Facebook or X.