On Wednesday, Justice Mojisola Dada of the Special Offences Court in Lagos found Ume Ifechukwu Clinton guilty and gave her a one-year prison sentence.
Clinton had defrauded Axelle Mahieu, a Belgian educator and carer, of €45,000 in a well-planned online scam.
This was announced in a statement released on Thursday by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The EFCC claims that Clinton was charged on February 22 of this year with three amended counts related to impersonation and possession of forged documents.
Clinton approached the prosecution for a plea deal during the hearing on Wednesday.
However, following Clinton’s admission of guilt, the EFCC’s attorney, Bilikisu Buhari, called a witness, EFCC investigative officer Damilare Adeosun, who testified against the defendant and through whom various documents were offered as evidence against him.
Adeosun, a participant in the investigation who was led in testimony by Buhari, described how the EFCC had responded to a tip from the Foundation for Investigative Journalism that Clinton had impersonated an EFCC officer to defraud Mahieu.
According to Adeosun, Mahieu was deceived into believing that Clinton was an official of the EFCC after he deceived her with an alleged EFCC ID card that she never knew was fake.
“The defendant presented himself to be a staff of EFCC and introduced her to non-existing cryptocurrency investment while assuring her that she is in safe hands,” Adeosun tells the court.
“During the course of his arrest, the fake ID card was recovered from him along with several expensive wristwatches and a bundle of cash totalling about N150,000.
“He admitted that he made the forged ID card in Owerri, for N3,000, to gain the trust of the victim.”
Adeosun added that the investigation confirmed that Clinton transferred money received from the Belgian through cryptocurrency to his own Binance account and exchanged the same through p2p, crediting the same in Naira to his bank accounts in Nigeria.
Consequently, Justice Dada declared Clinton guilty as charged.
Dada, however, sentenced him to one year in prison.
The judge further ordered the convict to restitute the €45,000 to Mahieu within three months.