- A Kwara State High Court sitting in Ilorin, on Tuesday, convicted one Tomiwa Adepoju for involvement in Internet fraud and sentenced him to six months imprisonment with hard labour.
A Kwara State High Court sitting in Ilorin, on Tuesday, convicted one Tomiwa Adepoju for involvement in Internet fraud and sentenced him to six months imprisonment with hard labour.
Adepoju was arraigned before Justice Sikiru Oyinloye on one count of cheating through impersonation on the Internet.
The charge by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission read, “That you, Tomiwa Adepoju, alias Paul Powell, sometime in August 2019 in Ilorin, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, did cheat by impersonation when you pretended to be one Paul Powell, a white male with the Gmail account, paulpowell1985@gmail.com, and fraudulently deceived one Larry Gowan, an American citizen, to send $300 to you through a stem gift card after you made him believe that same would be given to Fedex as delivery fee, thereby committing an offence contrary to Section 321 of the Penal Code and punishable under Section 324 of the same Penal Code.”
While reviewing the facts of the case, an operative of the EFCC, Olamide Sadiq, narrated to the court how the convict was arrested in the Tanke area of Ilorin.
He said, “My Lord, Tomiwa Adepoju and some of his friends were arrested following intelligence reports on September 6, 2019; items recovered from him included a laptop, mobile phones and a car; his emails were accessed from where some fraudulent chats and messages were printed in his presence; he admitted that he received $300 from his victim.”
The counsel for the EFCC, Sessan Ola, urged the court to rely on the evidence of the prosecution witness and convict the defendant accordingly.
The judge sentenced Adepoju to six months imprisonment and ordered that his mobile phones and laptop be forfeited to the Federal Government.
