Justice MTM Aliyu of the Federal High Court, Kaduna, on Wednesday sentenced one Peter Moses to one-year imprisonment for internet fraud.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Kaduna Zonal Office, had docked Moses on a charge of internet fraud.
Justice Aliyu summarily tried and convicted Moses after he had pleaded guilty to the charge and begged the court to temper justice with mercy on him.
The judge, however, gave him an option to pay N300,000 fine.
Aliyu also ordered the convict to refund his victim’s $450 (about N180,000) through the EFCC.
He also ordered that the convict should forfeit his iPhone 6 handset to the Federal Government of Nigeria.
Earlier, the Counsel to the EFCC, Deborah Adamu-Eteh, had told the court that Moses was arrested on Feb. 28, based on intelligence report received by the Intelligence and Special Operations Section (ISOS) of the zonal office.
Adamu-Eteh said that the intelligence report showed that the convict had been defrauding unsuspecting members of the public.
The report stated that his victims had been mainly: job seekers, whom he had defrauded by using several identities with different email addresses to disguise as foreigners.
The charge sheet read: “That you, Peter Moses ‘M’ sometime in February 2020 in Kaduna within the Jurisdiction of this court fraudulently impersonated one Anthony Newton.”
“And you claimed to be one of the Human Resources Managers at TTEC with intent to gain an advantage for yourself and you thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 22(2) (b) of Cyber-crimes (Prohibition, Prevention etc) Act, 2015.’’
The prosecutor had urged the court to sentence the convict accordingly after he had pleaded guilty to the charge.
