The Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt has jailed two fraudsters seven years for defrauding a South Korean of $600,000.
Aso Morrison and Frank Biobarakuma swindled the money out of the South Korean under the guise of selling Nigerian crude oil to him, according to a statement by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) on Saturday.
The ICPC statement said the convicts and others at large fraudulently took $260,000 and $402,300 from the South Korean, Jung Yongmin, to sell Nigerian crude oil to him.
The convicts perpetrated the fraud between March 2012 and February 2013 in Port Harcourt, the ICPC said.
Delivering judgement, the Chief Judge of the Rivers State, Simon Chibuzor-Amadi, found the convicts guilty on all 17 counts preferred against them.
The date of the judgement was not given in the ICPC statement.
But the statement said the judge rejected the defence lawyers’ plea to impose non-custodial sentence on the convicts.
The judge went on to sentence the two convicts to three years in prison for counts 1 to 4, seven years in prison for counts 5 and 6, and three years in prison for counts 7 to 7. The sentences are without any option of fine.
Since the sentences are to run concurrently, the convicts will spend seven years in jail – the stiffest sentence imposed for any of the counts.
The court directed that the judgement be communicated to the South Korean Embassy, whose petition led to the trial.
ICPC’s statement, signed by the agency’s spokesperson, Azuka Ogugua, said the convicts were first arraigned in March 2017 before the Rivers State High Court in Porth Harcourt.
They were arraigned on 17 counts of conspiracy, forgery and obtaining by false pretence.
The offences were said to be contrary to Sections 1 and 8 of the Advanced Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act, 2004 and Section 467 of the Criminal Code Act, 2004.
The convicts had earlier entered a “not guilty” plea.
Their first arraignment was before the former trial judge, B. A. Georgewill.
But following the elevation of Mr Georgewill to the Court of Appeal bench, the case was transferred to Chief Judge of the state High Court, Mr Chibuzor-Amadi, who saw the case to conclusion.
