Aaron Greenspan says three US proceedings are connected to the same 1990s drug investigation. The court record confirms an investigation and a US$460,000 civil forfeiture, but a fourth criminal case remains unproven.
The latest controversy around President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s old US records is becoming less about one headline and more about a basic question of documentary evidence: what is established, what is alleged, and what remains hidden?
American journalist and transparency activist Aaron Greenspan says he has identified at least three separate US proceedings linked to the drug-trafficking investigation that drew the attention of American law-enforcement agencies in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
He has also raised the possibility of a fourth case involving Tinubu himself, potentially a criminal indictment that was filed under seal.
But Greenspan has stressed that he has no proof that such an indictment exists.
The distinction matters.
The available US court record does establish that Tinubu was the subject of a criminal investigation connected to a broader heroin and money-laundering inquiry. It also establishes that US authorities brought a civil forfeiture case involving about US$460,000 held in an account in his name.
It does not, on the public record examined for this report, establish that Tinubu was criminally indicted, tried or convicted in the United States for drug trafficking.
That unresolved gap is now at the centre of the FOIA litigation.
Three cases, but not three criminal cases against Tinubu
Greenspan described the documentary trail in an interview with Laolu Akande, founder of Empowered Newswire, published on Wednesday.
“There’s at least three known cases now that are tied to this drug ring,” Greenspan said.
He identified the first as a series of criminal indictments filed in 1992 involving members of the broader drug network.
“There is the 1992 set of criminal indictments, which is where this transcript comes from, and that’s available in the National Archives,” he said.
The second case, according to Greenspan, involved Nigerian businessman Abiodun Agbele.
The third was the 1993 civil forfeiture proceeding concerning funds held in Tinubu’s name.
The three proceedings therefore should not be presented as three criminal cases against Tinubu. The first concerned people allegedly involved in the wider network. The second concerns Agbele. The third was a civil action against property.
The distinction is supported by the US judicial record.
In an April 8, 2025 ruling, US District Judge Beryl A. Howell recorded that Greenspan was seeking criminal investigative records concerning Tinubu and Agbele arising from a federal investigation into a Chicago heroin ring. The judge ruled that the FBI and DEA could no longer use “Glomar” responses to refuse to confirm or deny the existence of the requested investigative records.
The court went further.
Judge Howell found that the US Department of Justice had already officially acknowledged that Tinubu had been criminally investigated as part of the broader investigation involving the FBI and DEA.
That is an important finding.
It establishes the fact of an investigation.
It does not establish criminal liability.
What the 1993 forfeiture actually says
The most concrete historical document involving Tinubu is the 1993 forfeiture case in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Case No. 93 C 4483.
The case concerned several bank accounts, including an account at First Heritage Bank held in the name of Bola Tinubu.
The US government alleged that the disputed funds represented proceeds of narcotics trafficking or were involved in financial transactions prohibited by federal money-laundering laws.
The case was resolved through a compromise settlement.
On October 4, 1993, the court entered a decree ordering US$460,000 in the First Heritage account in Tinubu’s name forfeited to the United States. The decree described the money as proceeds of narcotics trafficking or property involved in prohibited financial transactions.
That is a judicial fact.
So is the nature of the proceeding.
It was a civil forfeiture case, not a criminal trial against Tinubu. The settlement records show that the claimants disputed the government’s allegation of probable cause and agreed to compromise the action.
That distinction has remained central to the Presidency’s response.
In September 2026, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy Bayo Onanuga said the Washington litigation was “a civil records-disclosure dispute under the United States Freedom of Information Act.”
He added that it was “not a criminal case against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, nor has the court found him guilty of any criminal wrongdoing.”
The Agbele connection
The second strand of the story comes from the criminal prosecution of Lee Andrew Edwards in Indiana.
Edwards was convicted in a case involving a heroin-trafficking organisation operating in the Gary, Indiana area in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
In sentencing proceedings, DEA Special Agent Vincent Balbo testified about heroin suppliers connected to Edwards. The Seventh Circuit’s published opinion records Balbo’s evidence about Abiodun Agbele, including testimony that Agbele supplied heroin to Edwards and that he sold hundreds of grams of heroin in 1989 and early 1990.
Greenspan says Balbo also testified that he participated in the arrest and indictment of Agbele.
That testimony is particularly relevant because Greenspan says his searches of PACER have not located a publicly accessible criminal case bearing Agbele’s name.
His argument is that related records may exist somewhere outside the publicly searchable docket or may have been sealed.
That remains his argument, not a judicial finding.
The absence of a publicly accessible PACER case is not, by itself, proof that a sealed indictment exists.
Why the fourth case remains an open question
This is where the latest revelation moves beyond the established documentary record.
“There could be a fourth,” Greenspan said.
“There could be a criminal indictment of Bola Tinubu as well, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
But he immediately qualified the claim.
“I don’t have any evidence that such a deal had been made, to be very clear. That remains an open question right now.”
That caveat is the most important part of the allegation.
Greenspan says the material he has reviewed contains unusually detailed information about Tinubu’s finances, family connections and other personal details.
“It is very detailed. Yet, at the end of all this excruciating detail, nothing happens,” he said.
From that, he proposes two possibilities: investigators may have pursued the matter and ultimately declined to prosecute, or a criminal proceeding may have been filed but remain sealed.
Only the first possibility can be stated without qualification on the present public record.
The second remains unverified.
What the FBI has now acknowledged
The FOIA case has nevertheless produced a significant development.
In an August 28, 2026 sworn declaration cited in current reporting on the litigation, the FBI stated that the responsive records were compiled in furtherance of an investigation involving multiple individuals for drug-trafficking crimes.
The filing also recognised the court’s earlier determination that there had been an official acknowledgement of an investigation involving Tinubu.
This matters because the question before the judge is no longer simply whether an investigative file can be acknowledged.
The FBI and DEA have now produced records.
The dispute has shifted towards what portions of those records can lawfully remain withheld or redacted.
The Presidency said the agencies had produced 399 pages, with portions withheld under exemptions covering grand-jury material, attorney-client and attorney-work-product privileges, personal privacy, confidential sources and investigative techniques. Tinubu has also asserted privacy rights under FOIA Exemption 7(C).
The legal fight therefore is no longer about whether records exist.
It is about what the public is entitled to see.
The 2025 ruling changed the terrain
That shift began with Judge Howell’s April 2025 ruling.
The judge found that the FBI and DEA’s Glomar responses were improper and had to be lifted, while sustaining the CIA’s Glomar response. The ruling directed the FBI and DEA to search for and process non-exempt records responsive to the requests.
The court’s reasoning is crucial.
Howell did not declare Tinubu guilty of a crime.
She dealt with a FOIA question: whether US agencies could refuse even to confirm that records existed.
The court concluded that earlier official disclosures had already acknowledged the investigation and that the agencies had not demonstrated the privacy basis necessary to keep that fact categorically secret.
That legal distinction has been blurred repeatedly in public debate.
An investigation is not a conviction.
A civil forfeiture order is not a criminal conviction.
A file containing allegations is not itself proof that every allegation in the file was established.
And the possibility of a sealed indictment is not evidence that one exists.
The newer fight is also about what remains hidden
The litigation has now widened beyond the historical drug investigation.
Greenspan has asked Judge Howell for permission to serve Tinubu with six written questions, four requests for admission and one request for production. He has also sought records from DCI Group AZ, a Washington public-affairs firm registered as an agent of the Nigerian government.
The request relates to alleged cyberattacks on Greenspan’s legal research platform, PlainSite.
Greenspan has not accused Tinubu of ordering the attacks.
No court has found that Tinubu, the Nigerian government or DCI Group was responsible.
Greenspan’s position is that the attacks coincided with important stages in the FOIA dispute and warrant further discovery. The allegation remains contested and unproven.
The other record Nigerians should not ignore
The Presidency has also pointed to a February 4, 2003 letter from the American Consulate in Lagos to the then Inspector-General of Police, Tafa Balogun.
According to the Presidency, the letter said an FBI records check had found no criminal arrest records, wants or warrants for Tinubu at that time.
That later record does not erase the earlier investigation.
Nor does the existence of the earlier investigation automatically establish guilt.
The two records answer different questions at different points in time.
That is why the chronology matters.
What is established and what is not
The documentary picture is now considerably clearer than it was when the controversy was fought mainly through political claims.
The US court record establishes that Tinubu was the subject of a criminal investigation within a broader federal inquiry into a heroin distribution and money-laundering operation.
The 1993 court record establishes that US$460,000 in a First Heritage Bank account in Tinubu’s name was forfeited to the United States in a civil proceeding after the parties reached a compromise settlement.
The Edwards prosecution establishes that Abiodun Agbele was discussed by DEA Agent Vincent Balbo as a heroin supplier to Edwards’ organisation.
What has not been established publicly is the existence of a fourth criminal indictment against Tinubu.
That is the unanswered question Greenspan is pursuing.
And that is where the story should remain.
The evidence has moved the controversy beyond the old argument over whether a US investigation existed.
It now rests on a more precise question:
What is contained in the FBI and DEA records that the US government has acknowledged exist, and what lawful basis remains for keeping parts of them from public view?
As of September 23, 2026, the litigation remains pending, with the parties still contesting disclosure, redactions and the scope of the records that can be released.
The public record answers some of the questions.
It has not answered all of them.
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