The Sokoto State High Court has convicted and sentenced three fraudsters: Joseph Moses, Raji Tijjani and Albert Chris Bulus, to twelve years imprisonment after pleading guilty to one-count separate charges bordering on impersonation and obtaining under false pretence.
Justice Muhammad Sifawa read in the charge sheet of the fraudsters : “That you, Albert Chris Bulus, male, sometime in 2023 in Sokoto within jurisdiction of this Honourable Court had in possession a document containing false information to wit: a Facebook account printout, wherein you held out yourself as John Williams, an information you knew to be false and you thereby committed an offence of possession of the fraudulent document, contrary to Section 6 and 5(1) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 1(3) of the same Act.
All three defendants admitted their guilt for the charges proffered against them. In light of their appeals, the prosecution counsel, S.H Shehu, requested the court to pronounce them guilty and impose appropriate sentences.
Following this, Justice Sifawa duly convicted the defendants and sentenced each of them to four years of imprisonment. The convicts’ path to the Correctional Centre commenced with their arrest by operatives from the EFCC’s Sokoto Command.
They had been engaging in fraudulent activities by impersonating foreigners and defrauding unsuspecting victims. Subsequently, they were prosecuted and found guilty.