US court orders release of dossiers on Tinubu’s alleged drug deals investigation
The District of Columbia in the United States has ordered the FBI and four other law enforcement agencies to release the dossiers on the investigation carried out with regards to Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s alleged drug related dealing in the 1990s.
The other enforcement agencies are the Department of State, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The judge, Beryl Howell, made the order on Tuesday, saying that protecting the information from public disclosure is “neither logical nor plausible.”
An American, Aaron Greenspan, filed a suit in June 2023 accusing the agencies of violating the FOIA by failing to release within the statutory time “documents relating to purported federal investigations into” Tinubu and one Abiodun Agbele.
Between 2022 and 2023, Greenspan filed 12 FOIA requests with six different US government agencies and components seeking information about a joint investigation conducted by the FBI, IRS, DEA, and the US Attorney’s Offices for the Northern District of Indiana and Northern District of Illinois.
According to Greenspan, the records being requested involved charging decisions on the activities, including money laundering, of a Chicago heroin ring that operated in the early 1990s.
In each FOIA request, the American sought criminal investigative records about four named individuals “allegedly associated with the drug ring: Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Lee Andrew Edwards, Mueez Abegboyega Akande, and Abiodun Agbele.”
After the requests, all five US agencies issued “Glomar responses”, refusing to confirm or deny whether the requested records exist.
Mr Greenspan contested those responses at the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy (“OIP”). The OIP, however, affirmed the agencies’ refusal to confirm or deny the existence of the requested records.
The American then filed a lawsuit on June 12, 2023, naming the FBI, DEA, IRS, EOUSA, and Department of State as defendants and challenging each agency’s response to the separate FOIA requests.
Court documents show that the CIA was later added as a defendant in the First Amended Complaint, along with a challenge to that agency’s glomar response to the plaintiff’s FOIA request.
On October 20, 2023, Greenspan filed an emergency motion seeking a hearing to compel the US agencies to immediately produce records responsive to his FOIA requests.
He cited the Nigerian Supreme Court’s plan to begin hearing arguments in three days’ time in a litigation contesting Mr Tinubu’s eligibility to contest the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria.
Three days later, on October 23, 2023, Greenspan’s emergency motion was denied for failing to “satisfy any of the requirements for emergency injunctive relief.”
Also on that same day, President Tinubu moved to intervene in the case, citing his privacy interests in his “confidential tax records” and “documents from federal law enforcement agencies that fall within the Privacy Act or exceptions to FOIA and should not be disclosed.”
In 1993, Tinubu was said to have forfeited $460,000 to the American government after authorities linked the funds to proceeds of drugs trafficking.
The issue of Tinubu’s forfeiture of the funds featured prominently during the sitting of the Presidential Election Petition Court when his opponents, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, challenged the president’s eligibility to contest Nigeria’s presidency.
The court, in a unanimous decision, dismissed the suits, affirming Tinubu’s election.
However, on Tuesday, Judge Howell ruled partly in favour of Mr Greenspan in the US case.
The judge noted that the ‘Glomar’ responses asserted by the FBI and DEA are “improper and must be lifted.” He said the FBI and DEA failed to show that they properly invoked FOIA.
Mr Howell said since it was acknowledged that Tinubu was a subject of an investigation involving both the FBI and DEA, “the claim that the Glomar responses were necessary to protect this information from public disclosure is at this point neither logical nor plausible.”
Explaining further, Howell established that a FOIA requester may challenge the propriety of an agency’s Glomar response in two ways: first, by “challeng[ing the agency’s assertion that confirming or denying the existence of any records would result in a cognisable harm under a FOIA exemption,” and, second, showing that the agency “has ‘officially acknowledged otherwise exempt information through prior disclosure.”
This means that the agency “has ‘waived its right to claim an exemption with respect to that information.”
In this case, the judge said Greenspan asserts both types of challenges to defendants’ Glomar responses: “The plaintiffs’ argument that (1) DEA has officially confirmed investigations of Agbele’s involvement in the drug trafficking ring, (2) the FBI and DEA have both officially confirmed investigations of Tinubu relating to the drug trafficking ring, (3) any privacy interests implicated by the FOIA requests to the FBI and DEA for records about Tinubu are overcome by the public interest in release of such information, and (4) the CIA has officially acknowledged records responsive to plaintiff’s FOIA request about Tinubu.”
Meanwhile, the CIA has the judgement entitled in its favour in this case. The judge ruled that Greenspan has failed to show that the “CIA has ever officially acknowledged the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to his FOIA request. therefore, the CIA’s Glomar response must be sustained.”
Five of Greenspan’s FOIA requests are still at issue in the parties’ pending cross-motions for summary judgement.
During the hearing, the plaintiff agreed to narrow the issues for summary judgement briefing to defendants’ Glomar responses, redactions, and withholdings as to Tinubu and Agbele only.
The judge ordered that the remaining parties, apart from CIA, should jointly file, by May 2, a report on the status of any outstanding issues in the case.
Part of the documents submitted by Greenspan to court to back his FOIA case was a verified complaint and accompanying affidavit, filed in the Northern District of Illinois by the Department of Justice on 26 July 1993.
The documents sought the civil forfeiture of Tinubu’s funds held by First Heritage Bank allegedly connected to the drug trafficking investigation.
The affidavit by the IRS Special Agent Kevin Moss, who was involved in the investigation, detailed the drug trafficking activities of Agbele which provided the ground for seeking the forfeiture of Tinubu’s funds.
It also shared insights into how Agbele was arrested while selling white heroin to an undercover agent.
It stated that upon arrival in the United States, “Agbele identified Akande (who has also been linked to Tinubu) as his uncle and stated that Akande provided him (Agbele) an apartment in Hammond, Indiana,” citing “investigating agents of DEA” as the source of this information.
Furthermore, he said according to DEA investigators, Agbele sold white heroin to another individual on numerous occasions.
With the assistance of “Source A”, DEA called Mr Agbele to purchase a small amount of white heroin,” which resulted in a transaction where “Agbele sold one ounce of white heroin to a law enforcement officer working in an undercover capacity.” Subsequent to this sale, “Agbele was arrested and agreed to cooperate” with the investigation.
The affidavit also states that further investigation by DEA disclosed a lease application completed by Agbele.
Mr Moss’s affidavit confirmed that both the FBI and DEA investigated Tinubu in the wider probe into the drug trafficking activities of Agbele and other members of his ring.
It confirmed that “there is probable cause to believe that funds in certain bank accounts controlled by Bola Tinubu were involved in financial transactions” in violation of US laws “and represent proceeds of drug trafficking.”
It stated that the targeting of Tinubu’s funds arose from “investigation of money laundering of the proceeds of a heroin distribution organisation in the Chicago area.” The clues relied on were said to include “information provided by Special Agents of the IRS, DEA, (and) FBI.”
