Guaranty Trust Bank has been fined more than £500,000 for failing to do thorough anti-money laundering checks on potential clients from high-risk countries.

The Financial Conduct Authority levied a £525,000 fine on the bank, a UK subsidiary of Nigerian Guaranty Trust Bank – one of the African nation’s biggest banks – after it looked at the bank’s systems as part of a wider review into anti-money laundering controls among banks.

Mr Ibori is the most high profile Nigerian politician to have been successfully prosecuted for corruption. His jail term marks a precipitous fall for a man who worked his way up – he was once a cashier in a London hardware store – to become one of the key power-brokers of Africa’s most populous nation.

The UK regulator and its predecessor, the Financial Services Authority, have made anti-money laundering controls a priority over the past two years as tighter directives from Europe and new UK anti-bribery legislation have taken effect.

“Banks are at the front line in ensuring the proceeds of crime do not enter the UK financial system. GT Bank’s failures were serious and systemic and resulted in an unacceptable risk of handling the proceeds of crime,” said Tracey McDermott, the FCA’s head of enforcement in a statement.

The bank said in a statement that it accepted the regulator’s findings but that there was no evidence that it handled actual proceeds of crime.

“The lapses in our systems and controls occurred during the early years after we first started operating in the UK,” it said. “We have addressed the lapses and our processes and procedures are now fully compliant.”

Some of his accomplices, including his wife, Theresa; his sister, Christine Ibie-Ibori; and a mistress, Udoamaka-Okoronkwo (nee Onuigbo), are already spending prison terms in various jail houses in the UK.
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