Secrets Reporters
The only asset left inside the British Virgin Islands company of the late Access Holdings boss, Herbert Onyewumbua Wigwe, and his wife, Doreen Chizoba Wigwe, is a luxury yacht named Chitochi. The company that holds it, Grosvenor Marine Ventures Ltd., was struck off the BVI Register of Companies and dissolved on 5 November 2024 for non-payment of its annual fees. His daughter, Otutochi Channel Uzoamaka Wigwe, has now gone to the High Court of Justice of the Virgin Islands three times in four weeks to take control of the dead company and sell the yacht.
The three claim forms on which this report rests were exclusively obtained by SecretsReporters. All three were prepared by Walkers of 171 Main Street, Road Town, Tortola, and signed by Rosalind Nicholson, a partner in the firm, as legal practitioners for the claimants.
Herbert Wigwe and Doreen Wigwe died simultaneously on 9 February 2024 as a result of a helicopter accident. The claim forms state that both were domiciled in Nigeria at death. At the date of their deaths, all of the issued shares in Grosvenor Marine Ventures Ltd. stood in their joint names, and the two of them were the only directors of the company. The company was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands on 7 March 2012, with registration number 1699812, and its registered agent at the date of dissolution was Global Corporate Consultants Group, Inc., of the O’Neal Marketing Associates Building, Wickhams Cay II, Road Town, Tortola.
The forms describe the yacht Chitochi as the sole asset of the company, a luxury yacht and a depreciating asset that requires significant ongoing maintenance and care for its value to be preserved. They state that significant expenses continue to accrue on the maintenance and insurance of the yacht, and that each estate is in danger of spoliation. The yacht is a 2016 Custom Line 108 of 33 metres, lying in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where American yacht brokerages carried her at an asking price of $6,500,000.
The first claim, BVIHCOM2026/0032, was filed on 6 January 2026 in the matter of the estate of Doreen Chizoba Wigwe. The second, BVIHCV2026/0004, was filed on 15 January 2026 in the matter of the estate of Herbert Onyewumbua Wigwe. In both, Otutochi Wigwe and Uchechukwu Nwabueze Wigwe applied as intended administrators of the two estates. The forms describe Otutochi Wigwe as the natural and lawful daughter of each deceased, and Uchechukwu Wigwe as the cousin-in-law of each deceased.
Each estate claim asked for an emergency grant under section 7 and section 11 of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (Virgin Islands) Act, Cap. 80, which renders applicable section 116 of the Senior Courts Act 1981, and under rules 45 to 48 of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (Non-Contentious Probate and Administration of Estates) Rules 2017. The Herbert Wigwe claim also asked, in the alternative, for a discretionary grant. Each grant was to be limited to collecting and getting in the Grosvenor Marine Ventures shares for the benefit of the estate, including the entry of the administrators’ names in the company’s Register of Members as holders of the shares, so that the rights attached to the shares could be exercised to preserve the value of the estate until further representation is granted. Both forms state that an application for a full Grant of Letters of Administration was being prepared, and both applications were filed with certificates of urgency.
The grants were made. The third claim records that the applicants were appointed by a Grant of Letters of Administration ad colligenda bona defuncti issued by the High Court of Justice in the Territory of the British Virgin Islands dated 22 January 2026, made under orders of Justice Theresa Hadad dated 15 January 2026.
The third claim, BVIHCOM2026/0068, was filed on 2 February 2026. In it, Otutochi Wigwe and Uchechukwu Wigwe, suing the Registrar of Corporate Affairs as joint administrators of the two BVI estates, asked the court under sections 218(1)(d) and 218(2)(f) of the BVI Business Companies Act, 2004 to restore Grosvenor Marine Ventures Ltd. to the Register of Companies. The claim is supported by an affidavit of Uchechukwu Nwabueze Wigwe with exhibit UNW-1, and an affirmation of Otutochi Channel Uzoamaka Wigwe with exhibit OW-1. Global Corporate Consultants Group, Inc. agreed to act as registered agent of the company following its restoration. The claim states that the company will file its register of members, its register of directors and its beneficial ownership information within 14 days after restoration. The claimants undertook to pay the restoration fee, any government licence fees and penalties, and the legal costs incurred by the Registrar of Corporate Affairs, and stated that they are not aware of any person who would be prejudiced if the court grants the order.
All three claim forms are built around a sale. The forms state that an offer has been made for the yacht at an attractive price, on the condition that completion of the sale take place on or before 31 January 2026. They state that, pending a Grant of Letters of Administration or an order of the court, no person is entitled to exercise the rights attaching to the shares, and the yacht cannot be sold. They state that a dissolved company may not carry on business or deal with its assets, and that Grosvenor Marine Ventures Ltd. must first be restored to the Register before any sale or disposition of the yacht can be lawfully effected.
Herbert Wigwe’s estate has also been disputed in proceedings in Nigerian courts, where members of his extended family challenged the arrangements under his will and lost. The BVI filings are a separate front, opened in the first weeks of 2026, and they concern the one asset the Nigerian proceedings never named, a luxury yacht held through a struck off offshore company.
The restoration claim was filed on 2 February 2026, two days after the completion date its own grounds set for the sale of the yacht.
The sale the filings were built to achieve was later reported complete. In March 2026, SuperYacht24 reported that IYC had announced the completion of the sale of Chitochi, handled on the seller’s side by its sales and charter consultant Mark Elliott, and that before the sale the yacht had been listed at $6,500,000.
