On Wednesday, Justice Mojisola Dada of the Special Offences Court in Lagos found Ume Ifechukwu Clinton guilty and gave her a one-year prison sentence.
Clinton had defrauded Axelle Mahieu, a
Belgian educator and carer, of €45,000 in a well-planned online scam.
This was announced in a statement released on
Thursday by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The EFCC claims that Clinton was charged on February
22 of this year with three amended counts related to impersonation and
possession of forged documents.
Clinton approached the prosecution for a plea
deal during the hearing on Wednesday.
However, following Clinton’s admission of
guilt, the EFCC’s attorney, Bilikisu Buhari, called a witness, EFCC
investigative officer Damilare Adeosun, who testified against the defendant and
through whom various documents were offered as evidence against him.
Adeosun, a participant in the investigation
who was led in testimony by Buhari, described how the EFCC had responded to a
tip from the Foundation for Investigative Journalism that Clinton had
impersonated an EFCC officer to defraud Mahieu.
According to Adeosun, Mahieu was deceived
into believing that Clinton was an official of the EFCC after he deceived her
with an alleged EFCC ID card that she never knew was fake.
“The defendant presented himself to be a
staff of EFCC and introduced her to non-existing cryptocurrency investment
while assuring her that she is in safe hands,” Adeosun tells the court.
“During the course of his arrest, the fake ID
card was recovered from him along with several expensive wristwatches and a
bundle of cash totalling about N150,000.
“He admitted that he made the forged ID card
in Owerri, for N3,000, to gain the trust of the victim.”
Adeosun added that the investigation
confirmed that Clinton transferred money received from the Belgian through
cryptocurrency to his own Binance account and exchanged the same through p2p,
crediting the same in Naira to his bank accounts in Nigeria.
Consequently, Justice Dada declared Clinton
guilty as charged.
Dada, however, sentenced him to one year in
prison.
The judge further ordered the convict to
restitute the €45,000 to Mahieu within three months.
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