A US Congressman accepted $100,000 in cash to bribe a high-ranking Nigerian official and hid the money in his freezer, the FBI claims in a court document published today.

William Jefferson, a Democratic congressman from New Orleans who is being investigated for bribery, was caught on camera taking the money in $100 notes from an FBI informant, according to the document. His conversations were also recorded.

"All these damn notes we’re writing to each other as if we’re talking, as if the FBI is watching," he allegedly told the informant posing as a businesswoman, who was wearing an FBI recording device.

Mr Jefferson made the remark as he and the informant swapped notes in code about what percentage the politician’s children might get from a communications company’s deal for work in Africa, according to the FBI.

The Congressman has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing.

The Government says that he received the money in a leather briefcase last July 30 at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Arlington. The plan was for him to use the cash to bribe a high-ranking Nigerian official to ensure the success of a business deal in that country, the affidavit said.

While the name of the intended recipient of the $100,000 is blacked out, other details in the affidavit indicate he is Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s vice president. He owns a home in Potomac, Maryland, that authorities have searched as part of the Jefferson investigation.

Mr Abubakar is widely expected to run for president in elections planned for 2007. Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer and the fifth-leading source of US oil imports.

All but $10,000 was recovered on August 3 when the FBI searched Mr Jefferson’s home in Washington, the bureau says. The money was stuffed in his freezer, wrapped in $10,000 packs and concealed in food containers and aluminum foil.

Two of Mr Jefferson’s associates have pleaded guilty to bribery-related charges in federal court in Alexandria.

One - Vernon Jackson, a businessman of Louisville, Kentucky - admitted paying more than $400,000 in bribes to the politician, in exchange for his help securing business deals for Jackson’s telecommunications company in Nigeria and other African countries.

The new details about the case emerged after the FBI searched Mr Jefferson’s congressional office on Capitol Hill over the weekend. The nearly 100-page affidavit for a search warrant, made public yesterday with large portions blacked out, spells out much of the evidence so far.

The document includes excerpts of conversations between Mr Jefferson and an unidentified business executive from northern Virginia. She agreed to wear a wire after she approached the FBI with complaints that Mr Jefferson and an associate had ripped her off in a business deal.

Mr Jefferson’s lawyer, Robert Trout, said in a statement that the prosecutors’ disclosure was "part of a public relations agenda and an attempt to embarrass Congressman Jefferson. The affidavit itself is just one side of the story which has not been tested in court".

The affidavit says that Mr Jefferson is caught on videotape at the Ritz-Carlton as he takes a reddish-brown briefcase from the trunk of the informant’s car, slips it into a cloth bag, puts the bag into his 1990 Lincoln Town Car and drives away.

The $100 bills in the suitcase allegedly had the same serial numbers as those found in Mr Jefferson’s freezer.

The Jefferson investigation has provided some cover for the Republican party, whose reputation has been tarnished by the investigation of Tom DeLay of Texas, the former majority leader, and other Republican politicians.

Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California, a Vietnam-era fighter pilot, was sentenced in March to more than eight years in prison after pleading guilty to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes, graft on a scale unparalleled in the history of Congress.

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