Court sends man to prison for Cryptocurrency scam in Kaduna

A Kaduna State High Court has convicted and sentenced one Emmanuel Simon to three months in prison for offences bordering on internet fraud.

The trial judge, Justice Darius Khobo handed the jail term on Tuesday, in a suit Nigeria’s anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), filed against Simon.

A statement issued by EFCC’s Head of Media and Publicity, Wilson Uwujaren on Friday, disclosed that the convict was arrested by operatives of the Kaduna Zonal Command of the Commission following intelligence linking him to cybercrimes.

“He is said to have used the Instagram account name, Hack4ord and Mrs Gina from California, USA, to send scam messages to unsuspecting persons to defraud them by telling them to invest in cryptocurrency trading with the promise that they will make profit in seven days,” the statement said.

Uwujaren noted that Simon was subsequently arraigned on one amended count bordering on internet fraud.

The count read: “That you, Emmanuel Simon, sometime in July 2022 in Kaduna within the Kaduna Judicial Division of the High Court in an attempt to cheat, impersonated one Mrs Gina (an American citizen from California) through your Instagram account named Hack4ord when you claim to be into cryptocurrency trading investment when you knew you were not, and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 142 of the Kaduna State Penal Code Law, 2017 and punishable under the same Law.”

The EFCC spokesman noted that the defendant pleaded guilty to the charge.

The prosecution counsel, E.K. Garba and defence counsel, I. S. Yahaya urged the court to enter a plea bargain agreement between the parties as the judgment of the court.

Justice Khobo convicted and sentenced Simon to a term of three months imprisonment or a fine of N100, 000.00

He is also to forfeit an iPhone 12 Pro Max used to commit the crime.

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