A federal high court in Lagos, on Thursday, adjourned until March 5, for re-arraignment of three persons charged with N26.4 million fraud.
The defendants are Ayoola Kelani, Chizoba Emesiana and Sodiq Hassan.
They are charged on seven counts bordering on obtaining money by false pretences, forgery, money laundering and computer-related fraud.
They were first arraigned before Justice Nicholas Oweibo on June 14, 2019, but pleaded not guilty to the charge.
The case had come up on various dates including June 3, 2019, June 13, 2019, June 14, 2019, Oct. 22, 2019 and Jan. 28, 2020, but trial could not proceed on some of the dates, following absence of the defendants.
Later, Oweibo was transfered from the Lagos Division of the court and the case was transferred to Justice Isaac Dipeolu.
When the case was called on Thursday, Mr Chukwu Agwu, a Senior Counsel with the Police Special Fraud Unit (SFU), noted that the case was coming up for the first time after Oweibo’s transfer.
He said that it meant that the case would begin afresh before Dipeolu.
He also noted that the defendants were absent in court.
He told the court that the defendants and their counsel failed to attend trial before Oweibo on several dates, including the last adjourned date.
Agwu told the court that he would get in touch with the investigating police officer in charge of the case.
The counsel said that if the defendants would fail to appear for trial on the next adjourned date, he would apply for a bench warrant for their arrest.
The court adjourned the case until March 5, for trial
In the charge, the police alleged that the defendants committed the offences from February 2017 to February 2019 in Lagos State.
They alleged that the defendants conspired with others at large to obtain a total sum of N26.4 million by false pretences.
According to the police, the first defendant, alongside the second defendant who goes with a user name “jenniecassie”, and the third defendant with a username “King smoker”, conspired to obtain N3.7 million from Winners Golden Bet, a subsidiary of Winners Golden Chance Ventures Ltd., represented by one Mr Tonade Olaoluwa.
They said that the three defendants hacked and manipulated the company’s computer network to commit the fraud.
The police added that the defendants misrepresented to the company that they genuinely won the said sum from their pool betting.
In count three, the police accused the first and second defendants of converting and concealing the origin and ownership of N1.9 million, which formed part of crime proceeds.
In count four, the police alleged that first and third defendants conspired to conceal the origin of N254,000, which formed part of crime proceeds.
In count five, the police said that the second defendant converted N210,000 she received from the first defendant, which was her share of the money from the betting company and which formed part of crime proceeds.
The police stated in count seven that the first defendant caused the loss of N26.4 million to the Winner Golden Bet by altering and suppressing data held in the computer network system of the company.
The alleged offences contravene the provisions of Sections 1(b) of the Advance Fee Fraud Act of 2006, Section 15(1) of the Money Laundering Act, 2012, and Section 14 of the Cyber Crimes Prohibition Act, 2015. (NAN)