5th March, 2021
A 25-year-old graduate, Olawale Oladayo, was on Thursday, March 4, 2021, sentenced to 24 months imprisonment by Justice Mahmood Abdulgafar of the Kwara State High Court, Ilorin, over offences bordering on love scam and internet fraud.
Olawale, a graduate of Quantity, was prosecuted on a four-count charge by the Ilorin Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
Count one of the charges against him reads: “That you, Olawale Oladayo, sometime in July 2020, at Ilorin, within the Judicial Division of the High Court, did cheat by personation, while acting as a white female, named Zenith Beuty Yart with Gmail account, [email protected], and in that guise induced one Liu Minghao to send you the sum of $300.00 (Three Hundred USD) vide eBay Gift Card and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 324 of the Penal Code”.
Oladayo, who was arraigned on Wednesday, March 3, 2021, pleaded ‘guilty’ to the charge preferred against him by the anti-graft agency.
Following his plea, the prosecuting counsel, Andrew Akoja, invited to the witness box one Detective Musa Sanni, an investigator with the EFCC to review the facts of the case.
Sanni in his evidence-in-chief narrated how a petition by some citizens of Offa on the activities of fraudsters in the area was assigned to his Section. According to him, the defendant was arrested on September 15, 2020. Upon arrest, a search was executed in his house where items including phones, laptops and Honda Accord car were recovered.
He also tendered several fraudulent messages printed out from the defendant’s email, which the court admitted in evidence.
In a well-considered judgment, Justice Abdulgafar found Oladayo guilty and sentenced him to six months imprisonment on each of the four counts.
“The sentences, which would run concurrently is however suspended till after two years”, the judge added
The court also ordered the convict to pay the sum of $375.00 (Three Hundred and Seventy-Five United States Dollars) to one Liu Minghao, $200.00 (Two Hundred United States Dollars) to one Johnny Soxnard and $75.00 (Seventy Five United States Dollars) to one John Tran as restitution.
The Judge further ordered that the convict’s phone and laptop which he used as instruments in perpetrating the crime be forfeited to the Federal Government of Nigeria.
The convict is ordered to be reporting at the EFCC Office once every month.