Kwara State High Court sitting in Ilorin on Tuesday remanded a 41-year-old civil engineer, Hammed Folorunsho Lanre, in prison over allegation of fraud.
The suspect was also accused of obtaining money under false pretence and impersonation.
The court gave the order following an oral application by the prosecuting counsel, Mr. Andrew Akoja, for the accused to be remanded at Mandala Prison, Ilorin.
Akoja urged the court to remand him, as the bail application had not been properly filed before the court.
The Ilorin zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) last week arraigned the accused before the court presided over by Justice Mahmood Abdulgafar on a two- count charge of obtaining money under false pretence, forgery and impersonation.
He pleaded not guilty.
Read Also: Kwara Assembly probes alleged transfer of chalet to Saraki
Earlier at the proceedings yesterday, one of the prosecution’s star witnesses, Babatunde Shittu, told the court that “the petitioner alleged that Stanbic IBTC withdrew N450,000 from his account illegally. We invited the petitioner to come, he adopted his petition. On May 26, I led a team of operatives to Stanbic IBTC, the bank officials gave the complainant a statement of account, which was analysed. It was revealed that the money was transferred into Bet9ja’s account.
“We sent the information to Bet9ja, they gave us the details of their customer who has account with them, which happened to be the name of the defendant. We later sent a memo to our Lagos office to help locate and arrest the accused person. He was arrested and shown the petition and he denied the allegations.
“During our investigations, we discovered that N540,000 was credited into his Bet9ja’s account, he moved N130,000 into his First City Monument Bank (FCMB) account immediately. We equally discovered that he transferred the money from his friend’s account, it was N10,000 in 53 tranches.
“We also discovered that his friend gave him (defendant) his phone to download Facebook, along the line, he had access to his pin and withdrew his money.”
Justice Abdulgafar adjourned the case till tomorrow for further hearing.
Leave a Reply