Fraudsters Sentenced To Sweep NIS Premises For Weeks

The five fraudsters convicted by Justice Zuwaira Yusuf are Salim Mohammed Sarki; Sani M. Auwalu; Bashir Bashir Nasidi; Aliyu Mika’il Muhammed and Yahaya Abdullahi Abubakar, popularly known as Shoki.

A High Court in Kano State, Nigeria has convicted and sentenced five Nigerian men to two weeks imprisonment and ordered them to sweep the premises of the Nigeria Immigration Service for conspiring to steal the sum of ₦1,398,972.19 from Jaiz Bank.

The convicts were arrested by the operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) following a petition filed before the Commission by an undisclosed petitioner, alleging that an account was opened in his name in a new generation bank without his knowledge or consent.

The EFCC in a statement said that the petitioner further alleged that the said account was being used to perpetrate fraud, adding that he was arrested by the police upon his arrival at Jaiz Bank to conduct a transaction and subsequently charged to court.

The Commission stated that upon receipt of the petition, it commenced an investigation which subsequently revealed that the son of the complainant, Sani Awwal, stole his father’s Automated Teller Machine (ATM) card and SIM card and used the same to steal the sum of ₦100,000 from the bank account of his father. He perpetrated the theft with the help of the other defendants.

However, one of the defendants, Salim Mohammed Sarki used the SIM card to generate the Bank Verification Number of the complainant and used the same to open another account in the bank for the purpose of warehousing stolen money.

Consequently, Salim used the new bank account to receive the sum of ₦1,298,972.19 from different victims.

When they were arraigned before the court and their charge read to them, all the defendants pleaded guilty to the six counts.

One of the charges read, “That you, Salim Mohammed Sarki (M), Sani M. Auwalu (M), Bashir Bashir Nasidi (M), Yahaya Abdulyahi Abubakar (Shoki) (M), and Aliyu Mika’il Muhammed on or about 5 April, 2021, within the jurisdiction of the High Court of Justice, Kano did an illegal act, to wit; conspired to open and use Ja’iz bank account with number 0008334796 in the name of Auwal Ya’u which was used to defraud unsuspecting individuals including Auwal Ya’u and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 96 and punishable under Section 287 of the Penal Code Law.”

Following their guilty pleas, “prosecution counsel, B. M. Buhari, asked the court to convict them accordingly; hence, Justice Yusuf convicted and sentenced the five defendants to two weeks non-custodial prison term each”.

The court also ordered them to sweep the premises of the Nigeria Immigration Service at Farm Centre for two weeks.