Feds are lowering he boom on Nigerian playboy Kola Aluko. The globe trotting businessman who reputedly is very comfortable among the glitterati, has courted Naomi Campbell, celebrated a birthday with Leonardo DiCaprio and rented his mega yacht, ‘Galactica Star’, to Jay-Z and Beyoncé for her 32nd birthday celebrations.
However, the champagne is going flat for 48-year-old Aluko who is targeted in a federal lawsuit aiming to seiz’e his $80 million yacht and his $50.9 million One57 penthouse.
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The suit claims the $80 million Galactica Star, and the full-floor penthouse apartment on Manhattan’s Billionaire’s Row were bought in a money-laundering scheme by frauds who bribed Nigeria’s oil minister.
Aluko allegedly acquired the contentious property with proceeds from money-laundering scheme by funded by frauds who bribed Nigeria’s fugitive oil minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke.
Allison-Madueke who allegedly embezzled as much as $16billion of energy revenue while in office, fled her home country to the UK in 2015 after he party lost the presidential elections.
The federal lawsuit states that Kola Aluko, a Nigerian energy mogul, bought the 79th floor penthouse at One57 in Manhattan, NY for $51 million in 2014. The home which has sweeping views of Central Park, has a past-due property tax bill.
The 6,240-square-foot condo is in foreclosure. Aluko hasn’t paid the mortgage, and the bank that lent him $35.3 million to buy the pad is forcing a sale, the city’s biggest foreclosure ever.
The past due property tax is estimated at a minimum of $250,000, and that’s even with the benefit of a 421a partial tax exemption that knocked down what would have been an annual tax bill of $250,000 to $50,000.
The four-bedroom, four-bath condo also has liens on it of more than $20,000, and owes $61,000 in taxes to the city as of July 1.
The apartment is due to go to auction Wednesday.
Nigerian authorities in February tried to freeze Aluko’s assets, including the apartment and the yacht, as part of the money-laundering probe.
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