ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – Editor of Harambe Newspaper, Wosenseged Gebrekidan, who was sent to Kality prison last week, Feb. 19, has disappeared and his family is unable to locate him in any of the Addis Ababa and Federal prisons.
Wosenseged was arrested after telling the court that he doesn’t have 3,000 birr to post bail.
The U.S.-financed regime in Ethiopia has brought charges against Wosenseged for publishing a report about lack of participation in the April 2007 local elections, which, according to the prosecutor, violates the “press law.”
Wosenseged is one of the journalists who were released from jail in July 2007 along with the top leadership of the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (Kinijit) after signing a pardon request letter that was prepared by mediators.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — A Sudan based petroleum company has penetrated to Ethiopian oil {www:market} to start operation on lubricants, fuel {www:distribution} and to provide related service in the country
Wadi Alsundus Petroleum Co, oil products distributor, is the second Sudanese oil company to operate in Ethiopia will begin functioning by the end of January, sources from the company said.
It exports gasoline to Ethiopia on behalf of Sudan government.
Wadi Alsundus has already opened branch office in the Ethiopian capital and built two oil-pumping stations in the outskirts of Addis Ababa at Mojo and Sebeta with each having an installed capacity of 160,000 liters.
The already built two oil-pumping stations are set to operate by the end of January.
The {www:introduction} of the Sudanese oil company will raise the total number of functioning oil companies in Ethiopia to seven.
The Ethiopian oil market, which had for years been dominated by foreign based Total, Mobil, Agip, Shell, in recent years been penetrated by the Kenyan Kobil, the Sudanese Nile oil, the Libyan Oilibya and now for the second time by another Sudanese oil company, Wadi Alsundus.
All the earliest dominant oil companies Agip, Mobil, and shell are actually No more in the market of the nation except for total.
The Sudanese oil company, Wadi Alsundus, has also planned to build 18 additional fuel stations in {www:different} regions of the nation to provide multi-regional distribution {www:operation}.
When the oil company goes into full operation it will provide direct supply to big enterprises that demand large volume of heavy and light fuels.
In November 2008, the Libyan petroleum dealer Oilibya bought the retailed business of Netherlands based Dutch shell, a shell company that operated in Ethiopian for 60 years and had built 200 retail service stations.
NAIROBI (Reuters) – Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki has rejected any effort to mediate a border dispute with Ethiopia’s tribalist regime led by Meles Zenawi (Woyanne), calling it a “wicked ploy”, state media said on Saturday.
Last week, Ethiopia’s dictator Meles said he supported efforts by Libyan leader and new African Union chairman Muammar Gaddafi to arbitrate between Addis Ababa and Asmara, but doubted the maneuver would be successful.
“The political and diplomatic campaigns undertaken by ({www:Woyanne}) … are but wicked ploys designed to appease the Eritrean people and international community,” state media quoted Isaias as saying.
“He further underlined that as long as sovereign Eritrean territories remain under occupation, engaging in dialogue about any issue is totally illogical,” it said on the government website, www.shabait.com.
A 2002 border decision gave the flashpoint town of Badme to Eritrea, but Ethiopia Woyanne initially rejected it. Addis Ababa Woyanne has since said it wants more talks.
Eritrea is also involved in a border dispute with Djibouti. The two sides clashed last year and tensions have remained high.
Ethiopia’s tribalist dictatorship urged Japan to lift a ban on imports of its coffee, saying the Horn of Africa country has taken measures to {www:prevent} pesticide contamination that led Japan to halt purchases last year.
“It’s time to put the Japanese market back and this has already been communicated to them,” Ethiopian Trade Minister Girma Birru said in an interview in the capital, Addis Ababa, on Feb. 17. “I think this is a problem we can leave behind us.”
Japan halted deliveries of coffee from Ethiopia in May after finding “abnormally high” pesticide residues in a {www:shipment} of the beans. Japanese officials demanded that Ethiopia find the source of the chemical and prevent future contamination.
Ethiopia is Africa’s biggest coffee producer. Japan had previously purchased about 20 percent of the country’s exports, said Girma, making it the nation’s third-largest market after Germany and Saudi Arabia. Ethiopia exported $525.2 million of coffee in the fiscal year ending July 7, according to the Trade Ministry.
Girma said the coffee shipment that led Japan to halt imports probably was contaminated by growers using sacks that previously contained insecticides or other chemicals. Most Ethiopian coffee is produced by smallholders who grow the beans without chemical sprays, he said.
Mocha beans from Ethiopia are highly regarded in Japan for their distinctive {www:flavor} and last year’s ban forced coffee shop owners to seek new blends.
No Beans
“We haven’t been able to offer Mocha coffee since last November because the supplier said they have no supplies of Ethiopian coffee beans,” said Takayasu Ito, a coffee shop manager in Tokyo’s Jimbocho neighborhood.
Japan will lift the ban once it receives assurances from Ethiopia’s government that there are no “reappearance risks,” Hiroyuki Uchimi, chief of the inspection planning section at Japan’s Health Ministry, said in a phone interview on Feb. 18.
Measures taken by Ethiopia to prevent a {www:recurrence} of contamination include establishing a laboratory to check for impurities in export coffee.
“We are now going to make clean all the coffee from smallholders or from state farms,” Girma said. “We have everything ready.”
PRESS RELEASE
U.S. Department of Justice
United States Attorney Southern District of New York
FEBRUARY 20 , 2009
LEV L. DASSIN, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and JOSEPH M. DEMAREST, JR., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced today the indictment and arrest of PAUL GABRIEL AMOS in connection with an elaborate, internationally coordinated scheme to gain access to, or “take over,” an account at Citibank in Manhattan belonging to the National Bank of Ethiopia (“NBE”), and to steal approximately $27,167,078 from that account. As detailed in an Indictment returned yesterday in Manhattan federal court:
NBE serves as the central bank for Ethiopia and maintains offices in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Citibank N.A. provided U.S. Dollar account facilities to NBE through an account at Citibank’s offices at 111 Wall Street in Manhattan. During the period September through November 2008, AMOS and his coconspirators caused bogus documents to be sent to Citibank from, among other places, Lagos, Nigeria. These bogus documents included a “Corporate Resolution for Banking” purportedly issued by senior NBE officials, and a purported “Global Manual Transaction Authorization.” Signatures on those documents appeared to match the signatures of NBE officials in Citibank’s records. The Authorization, among other things, purported to authorize Citibank to accept wire transfer instructions from NBE by facsimile, and included a list of authorized officials – including the purported Governor of NBE and five other purported NBE officials – who could be contacted by telephone to confirm details of any fax instructions received, in what was referred to as a “call back” security check. In fact, the Corporate Resolution and the Authorization, while accepted as valid by Citibank, were forgeries and had not in fact been authorized by NBE.
Moreover, the telephone contact numbers that AMOS and his co-conspirators provided on the Authorization form did not belong to actual NBE officials in Ethiopia, but instead were Nigeria, South Africa and United Kingdom mobile telephone numbers used by co-conspirators.
After supplying Citibank with the bogus Corporate Resolution and Authorization documents, AMOS and his coconspirator caused instructions to be sent to a Citibank payments unit in Buffalo, New York, directing Citibank to wire funds from NBE’s account to various accounts controlled by AMOS and his coconspirators.
Citibank verified these instructions through call back security checks with one or more of the purported NBE officials. In this manner, between October 2 and October 16, 2008, AMOS and his co-conspirators caused Citibank to make a total of approximately 24 wire transfers, totaling approximately $27,167,078, to various accounts controlled by AMOS and his coconspirators in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, China, Cyprus, and the United States.
The Indictment against AMOS was returned late yesterday and charges him with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud. If convicted, AMOS faces a maximum sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment.
AMOS, 37, a citizen of Nigeria, resided in Singapore until his arrest in Los Angeles on January 15, 2009, while he was seeking to enter the United States. The case has been assigned to United States District Judge PAUL A. CROTTY. AMOS will be presented later today before U.S. Magistrate Judge DEBRA FREEMAN.
Mr. DASSIN praised the investigative work of the FBI in this case. He also thanked Citibank for its assistance in the investigation. Mr. DASSIN said the investigation is continuing.
This investigation is being handled by the Major Crimes Unit of the United States Attorney’s Office. Assistant United States Attorneys MARCUS A. ASNER and SEETHA RAMACHANDRAN are in charge of the prosecution.
The charges contained in the Indictment are merely accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi and wife Azeb Mesfin should also be arrested and charged with looting the country’s national treasure.
By BENJAMIN WEISER | The New York Times
Swindles in which someone overseas seeks access to a person’s bank account are so well known that most potential victims can spot them in seconds.
But one man found success by tweaking the formula, prosecutors say: Rather than trying to dupe an account holder into giving up information, he duped the bank. And instead of swindling a person, he tried to rob a country — of $27 million.
To carry out the elaborate scheme, prosecutors in New York said on Friday, the man, identified as Paul Gabriel Amos, 37, a Nigerian citizen who lived in Singapore, worked with others to create official-looking documents that instructed Citibank to wire the money in two dozen transactions to accounts that Mr. Amos and the others controlled around the world.
The money came from a Citibank account in New York held by the National Bank of Ethiopia, that country’s central bank. Prosecutors said the conspirators, contacted by Citibank to verify the transactions, posed as Ethiopian bank officials and approved the transfers.
Mr. Amos was arrested last month as he tried to enter the United States through Los Angeles, a prosecutor, Marcus A. Asner, said in Federal District Court in Manhattan.
Mr. Amos, who was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, told a federal magistrate judge, “I’m not guilty, sir.” The judge, Andrew J. Peck, ordered him detained pending a further hearing. If convicted, he could face up to 30 years in prison, prosecutors said.
The fraud was uncovered after several banks where the conspirators held accounts returned money to Citibank, saying they had been unable to process the transactions, and an official of the National Bank of Ethiopia said that it did not recognize the transactions, according to a complaint signed by an F.B.I. agent, Bryan Trebelhorn.
A Citigroup spokeswoman said: “We have worked closely with law enforcement throughout the investigation and are pleased it has resulted in this arrest. Citi constantly reviews and upgrades its physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to detect, prevent and mitigate theft.”
A spokesman for the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington said, “We are aware of this unfortunate story.” He said the embassy was not involved in the legal proceedings, and declined further comment. Officials at the National Bank of Ethiopia could not be reached by phone for comment.
Prosecutors said the scheme began in September, when Citibank received a package with documents purportedly signed by officials of the Ethiopian bank instructing Citibank to accept instructions by fax. There was also a list of officials who could be called to confirm such requests. The signatures of the officials appeared to match those in Citibank’s records and were accepted by Citibank, the complaint says.
In October, Citibank received two dozen faxed requests for money to be wired, and it transferred $27 million to accounts controlled by the conspirators in Japan, South Korea, Australia, China, Cyprus and the United States, the complaint says.
Citibank called the officials whose names and numbers it had been given to verify the transactions, prosecutors said. The numbers turned out to be for cellphones in Nigeria, South Africa and Britain used by the conspirators.
Citibank, in its investigation, later determined the package of documents had come via courier from Lagos, Nigeria, rather than from the offices of the National Bank of Ethiopia, in Addis Ababa.
Citibank has credited back the lost funds to the National Bank of Ethiopia, said one person who was briefed about the situation.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – Editor of Harambe Newspaper, Wosenseged Gebrekidan, who was sent to Kality prison last week, Feb. 19, has disappeared and his family is unable to locate him in any of the Addis Ababa and Federal prisons.