Justice O.O. Abike-Fadipe of the Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos, on Thursday, April 27, 2023, convicted and sentenced one Wano Ahmed to one year imprisonment for possession of fraudulent documents, an offence contrary to Section 318 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2011.

Ahmed was prosecuted by the Lagos Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on a one-count charge bordering on possession of fraudulent documents used to perpetrate romance scam.

The count reads: "Wano Abdullahi Ahmed, on the 9th of March 2022 in Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, had in your possession, documents wherein you represented yourself as Rita John, a female American from California, to Mark Robinson, a representation by the circumstance of the case you knew to be false."

He pleaded "guilty" to the charge.

He had earlier pleaded "not guilty" to a four-count charge filed against him in March 2022.

However, in the face of the overwhelming evidence against him, he approached the prosecution to change his plea, thereby prompting the need to amend the charges.

Following his guilty plea, counsel for the EFCC, G.C. Akaogu, gave a review of the facts.

The defendant, he said, was arrested sometime in March 2022 alongside other fraudsters who engaged in computer-related fraud, including cryptocurrency fraud, bank fraud, romance scam and Internet fraud.

"Upon his arrest by operatives, he was brought to the EFCC office, where his iPhone 6 was analyzed.

“He was further interrogated, and he admitted to have engaged in dating scam," he said.

Akaogu further applied to tender, in evidence , his extrajudicial statement and a bundle of fraudulent documents printed out from his mobile device.

Justice Abike-Fadipe admitted them as exhibits P1 and P2, and convicted him as charged.

When he was given the opportunity to address the court, Ahmed pleaded with the court to look upon him with mercy, promising never to engage in internet fraud.

"This is my first time, and I promise to never do it again," he pleaded.

Consequently, Justice Abike-Fadipe sentenced him to one-year in prison effective April 26, 2022 when he was incarcerated.

Media & Publicity
28/04/2023