By Jude-Ken Ojinnaka
A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos on Thursday, convicted and sentenced a cybercrime fraudster, Ndifreka Edem Okon a.k.a “BINH NGUYEN” to a term of 12 months imprisonment for impersonation on Instagram social media.
The defendant was charged to court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) before Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke, on a one-count charge bordering on cyber crime.
After listening to the charge preferred against him, he pleaded guilty to the one count charge.
Following his guilty plea, the prosecutor, Mr Abbas Muhammed, reviewed the facts of the case and tendered some evidences in support of his case, which were admitted by the court.
He then urged the court to proceed and convict the defendant based on evidences presented by the prosecution as well as guilty plea of defendant.
After listening to the review of facts by the prosecution, sighted the exhibits which were not controverted by the defence, Justice Aneke convicted the defendant accordingly as charged .
During allocutus, the defence counsel, O.E Odetoki pleaded for mercy on behalf of the convict and urged the court to tamper justice with mercy.
In his judgement after listening to the allocutus by the defence counsel, the court sentenced the convict to a term of 12 months at the Nigerian Correctional Service, beginning from the date of sentence.
The judge gave the convict an option of N1.5 million fine, to be paid into consolidated account of federal government.
In addition, the court ordered that the convict shall do 100 hours of community service.
The court also ordered a forfeiture to the federal government, of the device used in committing the offence.
In the charge, the prosecutor stated that the convict committed the offence on December 7, 2023.
He said that the convict falsely held out himself on Instagram as “BINH NGUYEN ” with intent to procuring the issuance of financial instruments to himself, knowing that his representation was false.
The offence contravenes the provisions of Section 22(3) of the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention) Act 2015.
