The Ibadan Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Thursday, June 16, 2022, secured the conviction of the trio of Warees Tunde Oladunni, Makinde Ajibola and Alex Chibueze Akhiria for cyber-fraud.
The convicts were arraigned on separate one count charges each which bordered on impersonation, an offence which violates Section 484 of the Criminal Code Law, Cap 38, Laws of Oyo State, 2000 .
The charge against Warees reads: “That you, Warees Tunde Oladunni ‘M’ sometime in the year 2019, at Ibadan, Oyo State, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, with intent to defraud, did falsely represent yourself via your Facebook account to be a female citizen of the United States of America who goes by name, Isabella Maurice, which representation you knew to be false.”
The charge against Makinde reads: “That you, Makinde Ajibola ‘M’ on or about the 21st of February, 2022, in Ibadan within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, with intent to defraud, created a profile on a dating website whereby you represented yourself with the name Debby-12, an America from Texas, and by this means you obtained benefits and gained advantage (including the Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand, Five Hundred Naira) a pretext which you knew to be false, and you thereby committed an offence.”
The charge against Okhiria reads: “That you, Alex Chibueze Akhiria ‘M’ on or about the 29th of October, 2021, in Ibadan within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, with intent to defraud, created a false Lottery Scheme whereby you represented yourself as Grant Lottery, by this means you obtained benefits and gained advantage including benefitting from your victims the sum of Three Thousand Eight Hundred United States Dollars ($3,800USD), one iPhone 11 handset, one HP laptop, one 50 inches Samsung Television and one black iPhone 7 mobile phone, a pretext which you knew to be false, and you thereby committed an offence.”
They pleaded “guilty” to the charges filed against them.
Upon their pleas, facts of the cases were reviewed and indicting documents printed from their devices tendered before the court as evidence by the prosecution counsel.
Consequently, the courts convicted and sentenced Oladunni and Ajibola to four months community service each, and Akhiria to six months community service.
Also, the courts ordered that the convicts restitute their various victims and forfeit all items recovered from them to the Federal Government of Nigeria.