The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC Thursday secured the conviction of the dou of Innocent Uche Clinton and Emmanuel Okanni before Justice Sa’ad Muhammad of the Gombe State High Court on a two count charge bordering on conspiracy and theft.
The convicts who hail from Orlu Local Government Area of Imo State, specialised in duping innocent people by obtaining their bank verification numbers using the trick that their accounts had been closed due to BVN issues.
Innocent and Emmanuel were arrested by Operatives of the Gombe Zonal office of the EFCC in Imo State following a petition by one Ibrahim Bala Gwamna, alleging that on 7 December, 2016 he received a call from one Kingsley who presented himself as a staff of Diamond Bank and asked him whether his mobile banking is working to which he answered in in the negative.
Later, he received a text message purportedly from Diamond Bank instructing him to call a particular phone number as customer care in order to lodge his complaint. Few minutes after complying, he received an alert that the sum of N864, 000.00 was transferred from his account into the convicts accounts.
Upon arraignment today, they pleaded guilty to the charge and were accordingly convicted and sentenced to six months imprisonment each. They however received the option of N30,000 fine.
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Also, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on March 23, 2017 arraigned a businessman, Ibrahim Kamba, before Justice Y. Halilu of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT High Court, Jabi on one-count charge bordering on obtaining money by false pretence.
Kamba is alleged to have been involved in a land scam to the tune of N7 million.
The count reads: “That you Alhaji Ibrahim Kamba ‘M’ on or about September 2008 at Abuja, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, with intent to defraud, did obtain the sum of N7,000,000 from one Ali Hudu Iliyasu under the pretence of selling plot no 3027, Cadastral Zone A04, in Asokoro district to him knowing full well that you had already sold the same land to one Zira Maigadi ‘M’ in 2007”.
The defendant pleaded “not guilty” to the charge when it was read to him.
Prosecution counsel, Dalyop Vou, while asking for date for trial to commence, urged the court to order that the defendant be remanded in prison custody.
Kamba’s counsel, Hassan Liman, SAN, however, moved his application for bail, dated March 20, 2017.
“The defendant has been on administrative bail since September 2015 and so I urge the court to grant him bail on same conditions,” he said.
You opposed the application, arguing that “the EFCC had to arrest him after a very long time, during which he had been unable to meet the bail conditions”.
Justice Halilu, thereafter, adjourned the case to March 27, 2017 “for hearing of bail application” and ordered that he be remanded in Kuje Prison.
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