Kwara Court Jails Artisan, 2 Others For Cybercrime

The Ilorin Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has secured the conviction of a 24-year-old tiler, Yusuf Ibrahim, for offences bordering on cybercrime.

Yusuf was convicted alongside Abdulazeez Ademola and Nurudeen Abdulmajeed by Justice Mahmoud Abdulgafar of the Kwara State High Court in Ilorin.

The trio of Yusuf, Abdulazeez and Nurudeen had upon arraignment, pleaded guilty to the separate charge preferred against them by the anti-graft agency.

The charge against Yusuf reads:

“That you, Yusuf Olalekan Ibrahim, sometime between May 2022 and November 2022 in Ilorin, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, did cheat by personation when you pretended to be one Krissy Rivera, a female resident of the United States of America with call mobile +16059499190 and Gmail account krissyrivera0,@gmail.com and in that guise induced one Keith, a male resident of the United States of America to send you Apple gifts cards worth the sum of $375 and thereby committed an offence contrary to section 321 of the Penal Code Law and Punishable under section 324 of the Penal Code.”

Count 2 of the charge against Abdulazeez reads: “ That you, Abdulazeez Taofeek Ademola, sometime between February and December, 2020 at Ilorin, within the judicial division of the High Court, did knowingly had under your control, the gross sum of N9,254,75 deposited in your Guaranty Trust Bank account No. 0247893985, which is reasonably suspected to have been unlawfully obtained and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 319 (a) of the Penal Code.”

The charge against Nurudeen reads: “That you, Nurudeen Abdulmajeed sometimes in April 2023, in Ilorin, Kwara State within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court did cheat by personation when you pretended to be one Kelly Lochlan via your Instagram App and fraudulently deceived Colby Myers to send 240 Australian dollars to you, thereby committed an offence contrary to section 321 of the Penal Code Law and Punishable under section 324 of the same law.”

In the course of trial, counsel to the EFCC, Mustapha Kaigama urged the court to take judicial notice of the admittance of guilt by the defendants and the uncontroverted evidence adduced by the prosecution to convict them as charged.

Justice Abdulgafar in his judgement agreed that the prosecution had established a prima facie case against the defendants to warrant their conviction.

Consequently, the judge sentenced Yusuf to six months suspended imprisonment and ordered that one iphone 12 pro max and the sum of $200 be forfeited to the federal government.

Similarly, Abdulazeez was sentenced to six months suspended imprisonment at the Nigerian Correctional Centre. The judge also ordered that one iphone 11 promax, iphone x, HP laptop, one MacBook, one Toyota Camry and the sum of $100 which he benefited from the crime be forfeited to the federal government.

Justice Abdulgafar equally sentenced Nurudeen to six months suspended imprisonment at the Nigerian Correctional Centre. The court also ordered that one iPhone 6 and the sum of $100 which he benefited from the proceeds of unlawful activity be forfeited to the federal government.