Justice Olubusola Okunuga of an Ikeja Special Offences Court on Wednesday sentenced one Abubakar Sani to one year imprisonment for fraudulent conversion of N1,133,808,604.31.
Justice Okunuga convicted Sani following his guilty plea.
The convict was arraigned before the court on amended information dated April 30, 2025.
Justice Okunuga, in her judgement said she had considered that the defendant is a first time offender and did not waste the time of the court.
“The defendant, having pleaded guilty to the amended information and admitting the review of facts and exhibits tendered by the prosecutor, is hereby convicted and sentenced to one year imprisonment with an option of N1 million fine.
The judge ordered that the convict shall forfeit the money found in his Access and Keystone bank accounts to the federal government of Nigeria.
During the review of facts and sentencing, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) prosecuting counsel, Fanen Anum told the court that sometime in July, 2024, the commission received a written Petition from Lotus Bank alleging some fraudulent acts from about 718 customers who took undue advantage of the malfunction of the bank’s E-bill pay platform to make fraudulent and illegal transfers.
“The bank, as a result, lost over N1,133,808,604.31 to these multiple transfers to other financial institutions beyond the balances in their respective accounts,” Fanen added.
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Fanen also told the court that the defendant benefited the sum of N16,684,018:00 some of which he transferred to his brothers account in Access bank.
“My Lord the sum of N4,182,406.54 was traced to the Access bank account number 1623542076 of Usman Sani, the elder brother of the defendant and also the sum of N1,099,485.18 was traced to the Keystone Bank account of the defendant with account number 6038086328 with the name Abubakar Sani which were also frozen in the cause of investigation”
The EFCC prosecutor tendered in evidence the extrajudicial statement of the defendant, the Access bank statement of his elder brother and the Keystone bank account statement of the defendant as exhibits to support his review of facts.
The defense counsel, Ogunlaye, did not object.
