FBI announces death of Lee Andrew Edwards, Bola Tinubu’s consigliere in Chicago drug ring

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has told a federal court in the United States that a former Chicago mobster with ties to President Bola Tinubu has passed on.

The U.S. body said this on Wednesday as part of its latest update in an ongoing freedom of information lawsuit before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington D.C.

“In light of receiving information that appears to confirm Mr Edwards’ death, DEA has begun its search for responsive records pertaining to him,” the U.S. authorities said in court filing seen by PulseNets.

Officials did not say when and how Mr Edwards died, even though the revelation was framed in a way that suggested it might affect the timeline of future disclosure in the ongoing matter.

The announcement followed the government’s efforts to conceal information relating to Mr Tinubu’s involvement in an expansive drug business in Chicago. The government had previously released documents that showed Mr Edwards, alongside Mr Tinubu, was a prominent member of a drug mafia that operated in the northwestern U.S. in the 1980s. Investigators believed Mr Tinubu was a leader of the syndicate at the time.

But documents relating to Mr Tinubu are still being concealed, with the FBI submitting contradictory statements to the court. Aaron Greenspan, a public transparency activist who filed the freedom of information suit in collaboration with Nigerian journalist David Hundeyin, said the FBI has been downplaying the volume of records relating to the Nigerian president in its possession.

The FBI and other federal authorities “have not conducted an adequate search and are underrepresenting the number of pages responsive” to Mr Greenspan’s request, he told the court in the joint-status report entered on December 5, 2023.

The FBI has released hundreds of pages of records relating to Mr Tinubu’s associates, including Mr Edwards and Adegboyega Mueez Akande, the entire file released so far was completely edited to remove Mr Tinubu’s name or clues as to his role.

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Mr Greenspan urged the court to order the FBI to release the records promptly and exhaustively with Mr Tinubu’s name and role. He cited the Chicago already-public case file that detailed how Mr Tinubu forfeited over $460,000 in narcotics proceeds as evidence that the FBI’s files on Mr Tinubu can no longer be concealed.