How Custom’s Boss Impersonator Defrauded Job Seekers – Witness Tells Court

How Custom’s Boss Impersonator Defrauded Job Seekers – Witness Tells Court

An operative of EFCC, Shittu Babatunde, on April 3, 2019 gave
evidence before a Kwara State High Court sitting in Ilorin as to how
Azeez Yakubu Afolayan, defrauded job-seekers of about a million naira,
posing as the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col.
Hameed Ali (retd).

Afolayan is facing a four-count charge bordering on impersonation, job scam and obtaining money by false pretence.

One of the counts reads: “That you, Yakubu Azeez Afolayan, between
the months of November 2018 and January 2019 in Ilorin, within the
jurisdiction of this honourable court, with the intent to defraud,
obtained the gross sum of N267,000 (Two Hundred and Sixty-seven Thousand
Naira) only from one Usman Janet Opeyemi through your UBA account
number under the false pretence that you are capable of securing
employment for her son with the Nigerian Customs Services; the
representation you knew to be false and thereby committed an offence
contrary to Section 1 (a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and other Fraud
Related Offences Act 2006, and punishable under Section 1 (3) of the
same Act.”

Testifying before Justice M. Abdulgafar as the fourth prosecution
witness, Babatunde narrated how the defendant used fake documents to
defraud his victims. He said: “We wrote to the bank to request for his
bank details, and the bank replied us with documents, which showed Azeez
Yakubu Afolayan as the signatory to that account; it has his picture,
phone number and signature.

“Our investigations revealed that many individuals deposited various
amount of money into that account. One Mrs. Janet Usman Opeyemi paid a
sum of N267,000 into the account in order for her son to secure a job at
the Nigerian Custom Service, while one Mr Tajudeen Gambari paid about
N150,000. The purposes for the payments were not met.”

Prosecuting counsel, Christopher Mschelilia, thereafter sought to
tender the bank documents as evidence against the defendant. But defence
counsel, A.A. Rabiu, raised objections to the admissibility of the
documents.

Justice Abdulgafar, however, overruled the objection, admitting the
statement of account as exhibit. Mschelilia informed the court that the
prosecution closed its case with the testimony of the fourth witness.
The case has been adjourned to April 12, 2019 for the defendant to open
his defence.