Internet Fraudster Bags One-Year Imprisonment in Ogun

A Federal High Court sitting in Abeokuta has sentenced an internet fraudster identified as Gbenga Ajayi to one-year imprisonment for internet fraud.

A statement by the Head Media and Publicity of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Dele Oyewale, on Monday said its Ibadan Zonal Office arraigned the convict before the court.

Justice Watilat Ibrahim sentenced the convict after he pleaded guilty to a one-count charge of criminal impersonation. The convict, who was arrested in a raid conducted in his hideout in Ado-Ekiti in October 2019, was prosecuted by the Ibadan Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) on a one-count charge of criminal impersonation.

Investigations conducted by the Commission linked him to a series of internet-related fraud which formed the grounds for his initial arraignment on eight-count charges, bordering on criminal impersonation and obtaining money by false pretence before the charges were amended to one-count, to which he pleaded guilty.

Aside from the prison sentence, which takes immediate effect, the Judge also ordered that the convict forfeits his incomplete one-storey building located in Ado-Ekiti, a Toyota Corolla car and one gold-coloured iPhone, among other proceeds of and tools of crime to the Federal Government. He had earlier refunded N1,400,000 (One Million, Four Hundred Thousand Naira) to the government, through the EFCC.