Joy Anyim
A fake Employment Officer of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Bisong James Oyen, has earned himself two years imprisonment.
Oyen, who was arraigned before Justice J.K. Omotosho of the Federal High Court, sitting in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on Tuesday, June 18, was convicted and sentenced to the two years jail term without an option of fine.
The Defendant’s journey to prison began when a Petitioner had alleged that he logged into the EFCC’s website in a bid to apply for a job, but could not get log in successfully.
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The Petitioner disclosed that he later received a call from one Alex (Kalu Patrick Ikechukwu), now at large, that he should send his document to an email address ( jimmyexclusive85@gmail.com) and pay some money into an account number of one of the new generation banks.
According to the EFCC, “The Petitioner said he thereafter got an assurance that he would receive an appointment letter from the supposed EFCC that would qualify him for training by the commission.
“After waiting for sometime without any communication from the EFCC, the Petitioner had reported the matter for investigations and the results showed that Oyen was neither a bonafide employment officer of the EFCC nor authorised to receive any payment from any member of the public on behalf of the Commission.”
The Defendant was arrested and first arraigned, last Thursday, on a two-count charge bordering on forgery and obtaining money by false pretence.
One of the charges reads: “That you, Bisong James Oyen, on or about 11th December, 2018 at Port Harcourt, Rivers State, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court did forge Economic and Financial Crimes Commission appointment letter and delivered same to Talbort Young for employment with intent that it may be acted upon as genuine a pretext, which you knew to be false and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1 (2) (c) of the Miscellaneous Offences Act CAP M17 of the Revised Edition (Laws of the Federation of Nigeria) 2007 and punishable under Section 1 (2) of the same Act.”
Oyen had pleaded not guilty to the charges at the point of the arraignment. He, however, changed his plea, on Tuesday, to ‘guilty’, thus paving the way for his conviction.
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In the same vein, Justice Omotosho also convicted and sentenced an internet fraudster, Kelvin Ogbonna to two years imprisonment.
Ogbonna was arraigned by the Port Harcourt Zonal Office of the EFCC on a two-count charge, bordering on false pretences.
He got into trouble when the EFCC acted on some intelligence concerning his impersonation, possession of scam documents and internet fraud and arrested him accordingly.
The Commission said, “Investigation showed that his Apple iphone 6 and Hewlett Packard (HP) Pavilion laptop contained documents, which were false pretences.
“Upon interrogation, he confessed that he was involved in internet fraud by using a fake FaceBook profile with the name Fredrick Keefer and Google hangout accounts with the usernames barrito1@gmail.com and ms087704@gmail.com to defraud his victims via scammed mails.”