Justice Mohammed Sani of the Federal High Court sitting in Ilorin, Kwara State, on Friday, convicted and sentenced a 29-year-old farmer, Yusuf Babatunde, to three years’ imprisonment for cybercrime.
The judge also jailed three others: Abdulrahman Aileru, Uthman Busari and Adewole Iyanuoluwa, for offences bordering on impersonation.
Babatunde is from Osi in the Ekiti Local Government Area of Kwara State, and Aileru is from Ilorin South LGA of Kwara State, while Busari and Iyanuoluwa are from Oyo and Kwara states, respectively.
The Ilorin command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission dragged the four convicts to court over offences bordering on Internet fraud.
They pleaded guilty to the separate charges brought against them by the EFCC.
The prosecution counsel, Sesan Ola, Andrew Akoja and Rasheedat Alao, reviewed the facts of the cases.
The counsel tendered exhibits recovered from the defendants at the point of arrest, which were admitted in evidence.
The items included phones, laptops, a car and the extra-judicial statements of the defendants.
They urged the court to convict the defendants based on their admittance of guilt and the uncontroverted evidence tendered before it.
Justice Sani, in his judgement, agreed that the prosecution proved the cases beyond reasonable doubt and pronounced the defendants guilty as charged.
The judge sentenced Babatunde to three years’ imprisonment with a fine option of N1,578,000.
The court also ordered the forfeiture of one 2007 Toyota Camry, iPhone X and one HP laptop recovered from the convict to the Federal Government.
Similarly, Justice Sani sentenced Aileru to one-year imprisonment with a fine option of N200,000.
For Busari, the court pronounced a prison term of one year on count one, with a fine option of N1,182,633, and one-year imprisonment on count two, with a fine option of N100,000.
In the same vein, Justice Sani sentenced Iyanuoluwa to six-month imprisonment each on counts one and two with a fine option of N100,000 on each count.
Punch
