Date: 2019-12-18

The Ilorin Zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Tuesday secured the conviction of two persons charged before a Kwara State High Court sitting in Ilorin on offences bordering on internet fraud and other related offences.

The convicts Chibueze Meshak and Babatunde Bashir, were convicted and sentenced to six months imprisonment by the court presided over by Justice Sikiru Oyinloye on their separate charges.

The charge against Babatunde read; "that you, Babatunde Mohammed Bashir, on or about the 20th day of September,2019 in Ilorin, within the jurisdiction of the High court of Kwara state, did attempt to cheat by impersonation, when you represented yourself as a detective and requested one Mr Elian Torres Saucedo to send 500 dollars gift to you, a representation you knew to be false and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 95 of the Penal code and punishable under Section 324 of the same penal code."

The charge against Paul read; "that you, Paul Chibueze Meshak (alias Robert Hicks) sometime in June 2019, at Ilorin, within the judicial division of the Kwara state high court, did attempt to cheat by impersonation, when you pretended to be one Robert Hicks of the HR department of Amerigroup Corporation with Gmail account; roberthickeman@gmail.com and in that guise communication with one Jessica Winter of Wiltshire England vide Gmail hangout with jesswinter, a representation you knew to be false and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 95 of the Penal code and punishable under Section 324 of the same penal code."

The defendants pleaded guilty to the charges against them.

Justice Oyinloye in passing the judgement, said the evidence of the sole prosecution witness, Olamide Sadiq, an operative of the EFCC, was not challenged or controverted by the defendants.

"I hereby find them guilty as charged and sentence them to six months imprisonment", he pronounced.

According to the Judge, "Paul's sentence is to commence from October 21, 2019, while Babatunde's sentence would commence 5th September 2019, the day of their arrest."

"The sentence is without an option of fine," he added.