TSKJ Slush Fund
An approximately $180M fund maintained by the TSKJ consortium, allegedly to bribe Nigerian officials to win contracts for the Bonny Island LNG project. In a Nov 5, 2004 SEC filing, TSKJ member Halliburton admitted that bribes "may have been paid" to Nigerian officials[1][2].
Fund was maintained as a Gibraltar-registered entity named Tri-Star Investments, which was controlled by UK solicitor Jeffrey Tesler, who was also a financial manager for members of the Nigerian Sani Abacha regime.
In 1994 TSKJ set up a Madeira-based shell corporation, LNG Servicos[3]. Funds were transfered to LNG Servicos by TSKJ for "support contracts". Then equal amounts were moved to Tri-Star, which disbursed the funds to secret bank accounts in locations such as Monaco and Switzerland. The transfers from LNG Servicos to Tri-Star appear to have taken place on a schedule which tracked the stages of contract awards by Nigeria LNG to TSKJ[4]. In 2004, Swiss officials froze accounts worth about $100M, purportedly related to the TSKJ activities, at the request of French investigators[5][6].
One of the payouts by Tri-Star was to a numbered Swiss account controlled by KBR chairman, and Cheney friend, Albert 'Jack' Stanley, who was subsequently fired by KBR.
The slush fund is currently being investigated by the US Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission, the UK Serious Fraud Office, the French juge d'instruction Renaud Van Ruymbeke, and a committee of the Nigerian parliament. Several principals, such as Tesler and Technip executive George Krammer, appear to be cooperating with the authorities.
