The Sokoto State High Court has convicted and sentenced a fake bureau de change operator, Ahmad Abubakar Ahmad, to 87 years imprisonment, for N325 million fraud.

The fake bureau de change operator was jailed on Thursday, October 5, 2023, after pleading guilty to 12-count charges bordering on criminal breach of trust and obtaining by false pretence.

One of the charges read: “That you Abubakar Ahmad Abubakar sometime in October, 2022 in Sokoto within the Judicial Division of the High Court of Justice Sokoto State, while being entrusted with property to wit: the total sum of N80,100,000.00 (Eighty Million One Hundred Thousand Naira) by one Usama Abdullahi for the purpose of Bureau de Change business; you dishonestly converted the said property/sum to your personal use in violation of the mode in which the trust was to be discharged and you thereby committed the offence of Criminal Breach of Trust contrary to Section 300 of the Sokoto State Penal Code Law 2019 and punishable under Section 301 of the same Law.”

Another charge read: “That you Abubakar Ahmad Abubakar sometime in March, 2023 in Sokoto within the Judicial Division of the High Court of Justice Sokoto State, while being entrusted with property to wit: the total amount of N50,000,000.00 (Fifty Million Naira) by one Najib Hamza for the purpose of Bureau de Change business; you dishonestly converted the said property/sum to your personal use in violation of the mode in which the trust was to be discharged and you thereby committed the offence of Criminal Breach of Trust contrary to Section 300 of the Sokoto State Penal Code Law 2019, and punishable under Section 301 of the same Law.”

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Upon arraignment, the defendant pleaded guilty to all the 12 counts charges preferred against her, prompting EFCC’s counsel, Kufre  Ekpeyoung, to pray the court to convict him accordingly.

The defence counsel, Hamza Liman, pleaded for a lighter sentence for his client “in view of the fact that he is a first-time offender”.

The presiding judge, Justice Malami Dogondaji, therefore, convicted and sentenced Ahmad to 87 years imprisonment with a fine option of N200,000 on each count totalling N2.4 million.

Justice Dogondaji also ordered the restitution of N225.6 million to all the petitioners, through the EFCC.

Ahmad was arrested by the operatives of the Sokoto Zonal Command of the EFCC for defrauding 12 different persons various sums of money under the guise of investments in his purported bureau de change business which investigations, the anti-graft agency said, proved to be false.

The EFCC added that investigations further revealed that Ahmad promised his victims between 50 per cent to 100 per cent interest on their investments monthly, noting that he neither offered them any return on their investment nor refunded their money to them.

The Star