An oil flare lights up a fishing village near the $1.3bn OPL 245 oilfield which was controlled by a former Nigerian oil minister convicted of money laundering KUNI TAKAHASHI/GETTY IMAGESRoyal Dutch Shell bought a $1.3 billion Nigerian oilfield knowing that the proceeds were destined for leading political figures, including a convicted money launderer, rather than the government, an investigation claims. It has also emerged that Dutch police taped a conversation between Ben van Beurden, Shell’s chief executive, and Simon Henry, chief financial officer, in which the Shell boss refers to “really unhelpful emails” written by “the people we hired from MI6”. Shell and Eni, the Italian state-backed group, bought a vast oilfield off the Nigerian coast in 2011, paying the government $1.3 billion. Only a fraction of the cash remained in government coffers, with most going into the pockets of political figures led by a former oil minister who had secretly awarded himself the…

Source: The Times April 10, 2017 23:00 UTC