Justice M. Itsueli of the Edo State High Court sitting in Benin City, Edo State, on Thursday convicted and sentenced Kelvin Ifeanyi Aneke and Leonard Emmanuel Osaretin to jail for fraud.
The Benin Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, arraigned them on separate one-count allegations of unauthorized possession of false papers.
They were apprehended based on information acquired about their malicious actions. During the course of the inquiry, it was found that Aneke, 23, had impersonated Calvin Hills, an American national, in order to scam unsuspecting individuals. Osaretin, 25, is a romance scammer who established a phoney female Instagram account called anaroberts2221 to mislead unsuspecting individuals.
The defendants pled guilty to their individual accusations at their arraignment, leading the prosecution’s attorney, K.Y. Bello, to ask the court to convict and sentence them accordingly. However, the defendants’ solicitors appealed to the court to temper justice with mercy because the accused were first-time offenders.
Justice Itsueli convicted and sentenced him to two to three years in jail with the possibility of a 200,000 Naira fine. Furthermore, as proceeds of crime, they must surrender their phones and bank account balances to the Federal Government of Nigeria.
