The Ilorin Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has secured the conviction and sentencing of a 26-year-old forex trader, Kolawole Temidayo Joshua, and two others for offenses bordering on internet fraud.
The two others are Abdullahi Isiak and Daniel Roland Orji.
The trio were jailed after pleading guilty to one-count separate charge bordering on internet fraud, consequent on their arraignment before Justice Mahmoud Abdulgafar of the Kwara State High sitting in Ilorin.
The charge against Joshua reads:
“That you, Kolawole Temidayo Joshua, sometime between April and May 2023 at Ilorin within the Judicial Division of the High Court, did cheat by personation, when you pretended to be one Mia Phillips vide your Google Voice account: denissefranptonphm85@gmail.com and induced one Daniel Murphy a.k.a Wagba Wealth and Danny, to part with a gross sum of $400 (Four Hundred US Dollars) through Gift Cards and thereby committed an offense contrary to Section 321 of the Penal Code and punishable under Section 324 of the Penal Code”.
The defendants pleaded guilty to their respective one-count charges when they were read to them.
At the resumed hearing on Wednesday, October 11, 2023, EFCC counsels; Muinat Bello and Isabel Adeniran, while reviewing the facts of the cases narrated the circumstances that led to the arrest of the defendants. The counsels also tendered exhibits including phones, extrajudicial statements, and money which they brought as restitution by the defendants, which were admitted in evidence.
Justice Abdulgafar in his judgment found the defendants guilty and convicted them as charged. He sentenced Joshua to six months imprisonment with an option of a fine of N500,000 (Five Hundred Thousand Naira Only) and ordered that one iPhone 12 and the sum of $200 (Two Hundred United States Dollars), which are proceeds of the crime, be forfeited to the federal government.
The court also sentenced Isiak to six months imprisonment, which is to be suspended, and ordered that the iPhone 12 Promax used as an instrument of crime be forfeited to the Federal Government.
Equally, Orji was sentenced to six months imprisonment with an option of a fine of N150,000 (One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira only) while an iPhone 6 and the sum of $250 (Two Hundred and Fifty United States Dollars), recovered from him, was forfeited to the Federal Government.
The three convicts’ began their journey to the Correctional Centre when they were arrested by operatives of the Commission, at three different locations in the state, for internet-related offences. They were investigated, prosecuted, and convicted.
