Three fraudsters have bagged 35 years imprisonment after a Lagos Special Offences Court, Ikeja, found them guilty of defrauding Union Bank Plc of N160 million.
The trio outsmarted the “big, strong and reliable” financial house, and the EFCC’s investigations and prosecutions will see them in jail.
The convicted fraudsters are: Solomon Uguma, Oladimeji Ajanaku and Raymond Onyekwere.
According to report, the convicted fraudsters were given the jail terms by the presiding judge, Justice Mojisola Dada, after finding them guilty of all the charges made against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Delivering judgment in a case marked ID/674c/17, Justice Dada awarded Solomon jail-term of ten years, while Oladimeji and Raymond were given 15 years respectively, after pronouncing them guilty of all the charges leveled against them.
The three convicts whose trial began before the court since 2017, were charged and arraigned before the court alongside Obinna Obed Akwuimu and a limited liability company, Raynard Integrated Limited, on five counts charge of conspiracy, forgery, obtaining under false pretence and use of false documents.
The convicts, according to the EFCC had on September 17, 2016, conspired among themselves and fraudulently obtained the sum of N160 million from Union Bank Plc.
To defraud Union Bank of the said amount, EFCC Counsel, Franklin Ofoma had told the court that the convicts forged and presented to the bank, a Rivers State Inland Revenue’s document dated August, 2016 and captioned “Government of Rivers State of Nigeria; Rivers State Internal Revenue Service -Re: Notice Of Intention to Levy Distrain”.
The prosecutor, Franklin Ofoma further told the court that Obinna Obed Akwuimu who was formally charged alongside the convicts jumped bail and now at large, had forged the Rivers State inland Revenue Service documents used in perpetrating the fraud.