Dan Etete

In 2017, e-mails obtained by anti-corruption charities Global Witness and Finance Uncovered apparently revealed that Shell's executives were negotiating directly with Dan Etete for a year before the oil deal that corruptly enriched Dan Etete was finalised.

Both Shell and Eni, as of September 2014, are under investigation for corruption by the UK and Italy authorities for the incidence.

In 2011, as a former Minister of Petroleum under military dictator General Sani Abacha, Dan Etete facilitated the transfer of payment of $1.1 billion to Malabu Oil and Gas. Malabu was set up in 1998 by Dan Etete using a false identity so as to award himself a lucrative oil block, OPL 245, for which he paid only $2 million of the $20 million legally required by the state.

Dan Etete, was found guilty of money laundering by a French court in 2007. He was also found to have used illicit funds to buy a speedboat and a chateau. Since then, Dan Etete has been involved in series of illegal and fraudulent business practices both local and abroad. In the year 2007, he was convicted and sentenced to 3 years imprisonment also with a fine of 300,000 euros(about $440,000) by the French Government for money laundering. Later on he was pardoned by the French government in the year 2014, Dan Etete’s illegal involvement or activities did not stop there but continued as he was said to have been involved in helping to facilitate the illegal transfer $1.3 billion for the sale of the oil block owned by Malabu Company from Shell and Eni and transferred to the company during the former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, who was also claimed to be involved in the fraudulent deal in 2011.

Dan Etete (born 26 January 1945) aka Chief Dauzia Loya Etete, was the former Nigerian Minister of Petroleum (1995–1998), under the regime of Gen. Sani Abacha's 1995 and was convicted as a money-launderer in the year 2007.