(Ecofin Agency) - The US Justice Department is looking to recover assets worth $144 million bought by Nigerian businessmen, Kolawole Aluko and Olajide Omokore. The assets include a $50 million Manhattan apartment and an $80 million yacht, the Galactica Star.

In a lawsuit filed at the federal court in Houston on Friday, the department claimed that the two businessmen conspired with others to pay bribes to former oil Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke (photo), so as to win oil production contracts worth $1.5bn. According to the lawsuit, Aluko and Omokore created two companies; Atlantic Energy Drilling Concepts Nigeria and Atlantic Energy Brass Development, to handle the oil contracts. Despite the fact that the companies were unqualified and sometimes fail to fulfil the terms under the contracts, they were allowed to produce and sell more than $1.5bn worth of Nigerian crude oil. The money was afterwards laundered through the United States and was used to purchase the assets.

“The United States are not a safe haven for the proceeds of corruption. If illicit funds are within the reach of the United States, we will seek to forfeit them and to return them to the victims from whom they were stolen,” said Kenneth Blanco, acting assistant attorney-general in a statement.

Let’s recall that the former Minister is involved in several corruption cases. In this framework, she was arrested in London in October 2015 as part of a UK investigation into suspicions of corruption and large-scale laundering.

Anita Fatunji