A Kwara State High Court has jailed a 19-year-old man, Marvelous Awolowo, for 12 months for his involvement in internet fraud.
Awolowo was arraigned by the Ilorin Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on a two charges.
One of the counts read, “That you, Marvelous Awolowo sometime between May 2022 and October 2022 in Ilorin, Kwara State within the jurisdiction of this honourable court did knowingly had under your control N13,713,400 paid into your United Bank for Africa account No 2176465739 which is reasonably suspected to be unlawfully obtained and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 319(A) of the Penal Code Law and punishable under the same Section.”
He pleaded guilty to the charges which were read to him in court.
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The Head of Media and Publicity, Wilson Uwajuren, EFCC, said the facts of the case were reviewed by the counsel to the anti-graft agency, Rashidat Alao through a witness, Kamal Yahayah, who narrated the circumstances leading to the arrest of the defendant.
Kamal, who is an operative of the EFCC, tendered documents, which were admitted in evidence by the court.
Marvelous, who hails from Kabba/Bunu Local Government Area of Kogi State, was arrested based on credible intelligence on October 23, 2022 at the International Airport, Ilorin, Kwara State.
Upon arrest, one Infinix S5 Lite phone was recovered from him. The phone was analyzed and several fraudulent documents were printed from his emails.
The defence counsel, Antonia Erinfolami-Daniel, in her allocutus, pleaded with the court to tamper justice with mercy considering the age of the convict as a teenager ana d one with promising future.
In the ruling, Justice Adebayo Yusuf on Friday, sentenced Marvelous to six months imprisonment on each of the two counts, to run concurrently with N100,000 as option of fine on each count.