An Ikeja Special Offences Court on Monday sentenced a civil engineer, Olakunle Azeez, to one-year in prison for cyber-crime or Yahoo Yahoo.
Justice Sherifat Solebo, sentenced Azeez who is a father of three.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) charged Azeez with cyber-crime.
The convict entered a plea bargain agreement dated Nov. 18, 2019 with the anti-graft agency.
Justice Solebo said: “upon review of the facts by the prosecution and upon the submission of the defense counsel, the defendant is sentenced to one-year in the correctional center.
“In view of the fact that the defendant has been in custody for over a year, the sentencing guidelines of the Lagos State Judiciary and the plea bargain agreement, he is hereby set free,” he said.
Solebo ordered that Azeez’s Tecno mobile phone and Lexus car which were seized by the EFCC for being proceeds of fraud should be forfeited to the Federal Government.
Upon hearing that his sentence was in lieu of time spent in custody, the convict was visibly relieved and raised his hands in thanks.
Earlier during proceedings, Mr Temitope Banjo, the EFCC counsel, gave a review of the facts that led to Azeez’s arrest by the anti-graft agency.
“The defendant was arrested sometime in December 2018. He is a member of a syndicate involved in internet fraud popularly called “Yahoo Yahoo”.
“In the course of investigation, his Tecno mobile phone was seized and his statement was taken in the presence of his counsel. He confessed expressly to committing the crimes.
“He said he has several gmail accounts where he posed as a Canadian or U.S. citizen. His Tecno mobile phone was seized and analysed and several false statements were printed from that phone.
“He also confessed that his Lexus RX300 car with registration number APP204AA was bought with 15,000 dollars which were proceeds of the fraud,” Banjo said.
The defence counsel, Mr Olanrewaju Ajanaku, in his allocutus (plea for mercy) had asked the court to temper justice with mercy.
“He is married man and has three children aged nine, five and six-months. The last child was born when he was in custody.
“He has been in custody since Dec. 21, 2017 and has learnt that it does not pay to be involved in crime, he has made his statement and he has said he will never be involved in any shady deal,” Ajanaku said.
The offence the prosecution said contravened the provisions of Section 318 of the Criminal Law of Lagos 2015.
