Men who defrauded Nigerians using BVNs jailed

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC today secured the conviction of Innocent Clinton and Emmanuel Okanni before Justice Sa’ad Muhammad of the Gombe State High Court on a two-count charge bordering on conspiracy and theft.

The convicts, who hail from Orlu Local Government Area of Imo State, specialised in duping innocent people by obtaining their bank verification numbers using the trick that their accounts had been closed due to BVN issues.

Messrs. Clinton and Okanni were arrested by operatives of the Gombe Zonal office of the EFCC in Imo State following a petition by Ibrahim Gwamna, alleging that on December 7, 2016, he received a call from one Kingsley who presented himself as a staff of Diamond Bank and asked him whether his mobile banking was working to which he answered in in the negative.

Later, he received a text message purportedly from Diamond Bank instructing him to call a particular phone number as customer care in order to lodge his complaint.

Few minutes after complying, he received an alert that the sum of N864, 000.00 was transferred from his account into the convicts’ accounts.

Upon arraignment today, the two men pleaded guilty to the charge and were accordingly convicted and sentenced to six months imprisonment each.

They however received the option of N30, 000 fine.