Sani Abacha ran Nigeria from 1993 until his death in 1998, which was convenient for him because it meant he never faced charges for stealing somewhere between $5 billion and $9 billion of public funds — estimates vary because the number is so large it becomes difficult to count. He simply helped himself to state money through fraud, false contracts, and commissions, then distributed the proceeds across banks in Switzerland, Luxembourg, the UK, and the Channel Island of Jersey, which exists primarily to ensure that money goes somewhere quiet and stays there. After Abacha's death, Nigeria spent the better part of three decades in courtrooms across multiple continents attempting to recover its own treasury. Switzerland returned $500 million in 2006 — the first time European banks had repatriated looted funds to an African country. The US and Jersey signed a $300 million repatriation deal in 2020. Jersey followed up with another $9.5 million in 2026. The Abacha family, for their part, went to court to block repatriation on fair trial grounds. The man himself was never charged with anything. Nigeria's anti-corruption agency estimates $400 billion has been siphoned from the country since 1960. The infrastructure of grand theft was entirely international, and entirely accommodating.