Former minister of petroleum resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke failed to appear in court on Monday as the British government applied to detain money seized from her but fresh indications emerged on how the former minister came under the radar of the law enforcement agencies in the United Kingdom.

Punch reports that Alison-Madueke and a former managing director of a Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) parastatal courted the attention of the authorities after each purchased houses in London.

Alison-Madueke and the ex-MD had bought the London houses through a mortgage but then offered to pay huge sums to clear the mortgage on the properties thereby attracting the attention of the British police.

The house purchased by the former minister was said to have cost £12.5m while the cost of the house purchased by the former NNPC MD could not be immediately ascertained.

Punch reports that the UK’s National Crimes Agency had dispatched a team to Abuja for an investigation into the incomes of the affected public officers because of the huge amount of money that was being paid steadily to defray the amount on the mortgage.

The British police was said to have suspected that the mortgaged London properties might have been serviced with laundered money from the Government of Nigeria.

The investigation, which commenced in 2013 climaxed Friday last week with the arrest of Alison-Madueke and four others by the UK police.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Nigeria similarly raided the residence of the former minister at Asokoro same day she was arrested in the UK.

Operatives from the Subsidy Unit of the EFCC were said to have carted away several documents from the residence as well as recovered the sum of N1.2m. The EFCC is said to be analysing the files retrieved.