Ghanaian businessman and politician Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom has officially responded to the suit against him by a US-based company for $63m in alleged money laundering, wire fraud.
An equity fund and securities investment company based in the United States, Birim LLC, them.
“The Nduom family defendants, by and through their ownership, control and use of defendants GN Bank, Gold Coast Fund Management and over 60 undercapitalised interrelated companies, collected several million dollars of depositor’s saving, investment contributions and insurance premiums, and in violation of U.S. and Ghana laws illegally laundered approximately $63,000,000 of depositors’ funds through its Virginia-based sham ‘procurement and consulting service’ company, International Business Solutions,” it stated.
It added “Plaintiff further alleges that Nduom family defendants dominate and control the Corporate Defendants and the related 60 or more companies, and in so doing, these entities commingle their funds and other assets and fail to segregate the funds of the separate entities. There is also the unauthorised diversion of corporate funds or assets to non-corporate uses”.
The plaintiff referred to the recent clean up in the banking sector which affected Nduom’s bank, saying, “a substantial portion of its [GN Bank] loans were illegally made to Nduom-related entities without the benefit of appropriate risk assessments, managements or determinants”.
But portions of the response to the suit filed by lawyers of Dr Nduom said “Birim Group LLC’s complaints misuse this court to smear a Ghanaian entrepreneur and political leader Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom , Founder of the Ghana Progressive Peoples Party. Birim Group itself is a murky LLC whose members the complaints does not identify.”
