The courts are no stranger to outlandish allegations but a €10bn case against Citibank, which was thrown out by the High Court this week, was unusual to say the least.

Lex Foundation – which claims it ‘manages the funding of high-value humanitarian projects on behalf of the United Nations’, a claim for which there appears to be no evidence – alleged the sum was transferred by Deutsche Bank to its account with Citibank.

Citibank said no such transfer was ever sent or received and the High Court agreed, ruling Lex has ‘no realistic prospect of showing that the alleged transfer took place’. So far, so simple.

But Mr Justice Henshaw’s judgment is notable for the, er, colourful statements made by Lex’s founder Olgun Halil Shah, including claims that he is ‘an undercover agent for security services’ and suggestions he was ‘being used to trigger the crash of the prevailing global financial system’.

Shah emailed Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, to say his intelligence sources claimed Citibank had taken the €10bn for its own benefit – and proposing that, if the BoE credited Lex’s account with €10bn, he would add a further €90bn into the account.

He also proposed to ‘acquire 10% of the fully diluted stock of Citigroup by means of an issue of new shares’. The judgment is silent on whether Bailey replied to the generous offer.

In a letter to Citigroup’s chief Jane Fraser, Shah said: ‘If you cooperate with me and my associates, this could be your Kobayashi Maru moment.’ (A reference to the popular science fiction programme Star Trek, m’lud.)

And Henshaw noted that Shah claims to have transported $700m in cash stored in a cave in Afghanistan, to be ‘used by the CIA to bribe a Taliban chief’.

Shortly after proceedings were issued, Shah wrote to Bailey, Fraser, Serious Fraud Office director Lisa Osofsky and the president of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde, claiming that a ‘cartel of bankers’ have ‘systematically drained monies’ out of the fund from which Lex received the €10bn, assisted by (who else?) the CIA.

He added: ‘I want it on record that I tried to resolve this matter discretely for the sake of stability of the global financial system.’ Not all heroes wear capes…

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