The next step was to draw a proposal for the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the department that oversees Nigeria’s considerable fossil-fuel reserves. Nigeria would pipe in wet gas at no cost to the company. For about a year leading up to the submission of P.&I.D.’s proposal, Quinn and Cahill sent Taiga and one of her daughters just a bit more than $25,000 in incremental payments. Quinn also took Taiga’s colleague, a Ministry employee named Taofiq Tijani, to dinner at Chopsticks, a Chinese restaurant in Abuja. Then, shortly before the contract was signed, Cahill sent another $5,000 from a bank in Cyprus to Taiga’s daughter’s account, which was coded as a “commission payment.”

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Persons: Grace Taiga, Quinn, Cahill, Taofiq, Taiga’s, ” Organizations: Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Ministry of Defense, Ministry Locations: Nigeria, Chopsticks, Abuja, Cyprus