London lawyer fights extradition over £100m Nigeria bribes claim

Denials: Jeffrey Tesler was arrested in Tottenham after the US requested his extradition. He says the money he received was a fee for his services — not a bribe

A London lawyer is fighting extradition to the US after being arrested over claims he channelled £100 million in bribes to Nigerian officials.

Jeffrey Tesler, 60, faces spending the rest of his life in an American jail if convicted. He was arrested at a business address in Tottenham after US authorities issued an extradition request.

Mr Tesler, who has denied any wrongdoing, is suspected of funnelling as much as $130 million to Nigerian government officials to win contracts to build a $6 billion gas production plant there.

A second Briton - Wojciech Chodan, 71, who lives in Maidenhead - also faces extradition.

Prosecutors in Houston, Texas, have charged the two with conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. If convicted they face up to 55 years in prison.

They are accused of helping to steer bribes from Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), a construction company and former subsidiary of oil giant Halliburton, to win the lucrative contracts. Mr Chodan was a former consultant and salesman for KBR.

At his £1.5 million detached home in Hendon today, Mr Tesler's wife Judy, 56, refused to comment. "I am not talking to the press," she said. Mr Tesler's lawyers insist the money he received was a fee for services and not a bribe.

Mr Tesler, a distinctive figure who often wears a brown fedora, is listed as a consultant at Kaye Tesler solicitors, a small suburban practice, in West Green Road, Tottenham.

The firm is based in a shopfront between a halal grocer and an estate agent.

It is alleged that Mr Tesler acted as the middle man in the deal between 1995 and 2004. The international consortium seeking the Nigerian contract included engineering consultancy MW Kellogg, whose British subsidiary is based in Greenford, west London.

In September 1998, Kellogg was taken over by Halliburton, which was controlled by Dick Cheney until he became vice-president in 2004.

Scotland Yard said today that Mr Tesler was taken to a central London police station and appeared before City of Westminster magistrates yesterday. He will appear again at a later date. The extradition warrant says that between 1 January 1995 and 31 December 2004 Mr Tesler conspired with the consortium to commit bribery and that he conspired with the joint venture to "dishonestly furnish a series of sham consulting agreements".

US authorities believe Mr Tesler controlled the money through an offshore company in Gibraltar.

He is also accused of arranging for executives of the consortium to meet senior Nigerian officials to discuss plans for the liquefied gas plant in the oil-rich Niger delta.

After that first meeting, it is alleged the consortium handed Mr Tesler an initial $60 million to pass to the Nigerians.

The investigation into Mr Tesler has been running for about six years but his arrest follows a guilty plea entered in a Houston court by KBR last month over its role in bribing officials.

The company agreed to pay $400 million in fines. KBR's former chief executive Albert "Jack" Stanley pleaded guilty in September to his role and awaits sentencing.

The extradition of Mr Tesler and Mr Chodan, both of them now advanced in years, demonstrates what experts call the "long arm of US anti-corruption laws".

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