Justice O. I. Adelaja of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, High Court Kubwa, has convicted and sentenced 15 internet fraudsters to various jail terms.
The convicts are: Emmanuel Ndubuisi Junior, Obinna Favour, Azuh Chidubem, Christopher Enaho, Abdullahi Sani, Atoyebi Damilare James, Chinonso Peter and Israel Samuel. Others are Matthew Gideon, Eugene Joseph Boniface and Derick Beshel. The rest are: Suleiman Dauda, Aliu Dauda, Ikechukwu Idris and Godwin Ifeanyi.
One of the charges read: “that you Emmanuel Ndubuisi Junior aka Daniel Howard sometime in 2021 within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court did cheat by personation when you misrepresented yourself to be one Daniel Howard a citizen of Brazil and a crypto investment manager on Gmail address danielhowardsteve@gmail.com with intent to defraud whereby you obtained the sum of Seven Thousand Eight Hundred Dollars ($7,800) from one Sophia and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 321 of the Penal Code Act (Abuja) Cap 532, LFN 2004 and punishable under Section 324 of the same Act”.
They all pleaded guilty to the one-count charges preferred against them.
Based on their pleas, Justice Adelaja convicted and sentenced Junior to one-year jail term or an option of fine of N2 million. He also forfeited $7,800 to the Federal Government while Favour bagged one-year jail term or an option of fine of N1 million.
Chidubem also bagged one-year jail term with an option of fine of N1 million while Ifeanyi bagged one-year jail term or a fine of N500,000.
Other convicts had non-custodial sentencing of diverse hours of community service to be supervised by officers of the Correctional Service.
All convicts are also to forfeit their phones to the Federal Government.