EFCC rearrests cybercrime suspect after court grants him N50m bail

A drama played out at the federal high court in Lagos on Thursday after a suspect granted bail was rearrested by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The court granted N50 bail to Audu Friday, a cybercrime suspect facing charges preferred by the commission (EFCC).

The anti-graft agency arraigned Friday on Monday alongside two Chinese nationals and a company on a 12-count cybercrime charge.

The other defendants are Huang Haoyu, An Hongxu, and Gentting International Ltd.

They all entered a plea of not guilty.

According to the EFCC, the defendants allegedly conspired to commit the offences with Dualiang Pan, who is now at large.

Bilikisu Buhari, the EFCC counsel, told the court on Monday that the defendants allegedly willfully assessed computer systems and organised to destabilise Nigeria’s economic structure.

She also said that the defendants allegedly recruited some Nigerian youths to falsely represent themselves as persons of foreign nationalities.

The EFCC counsel added that they allegedly recruited one Chukwuemeka Okeke to retain $1.2 million in his crypto wallet, which they ought to know forms part of fraudulent activities.

She said the defendants also kept Alhassan Garba and Ifesinaci Jacobs as recruits under them to retain $1.3 million in their crypto wallet.

They were also alleged to have retained in the Union Bank account of Gentting International Ltd. the sum of N3.4 billion, which also forms part of the proceeds of their fraudulent activities.

The prosecutor alleged that the suspects transferred, among others, N106 million and N913 million to Dualiang’s UBA account, which was also the proceeds of their fraudulent activities.

She told the court that all the transfers were made from Gentting Ltd.

Besides, the defendants were said to have illegally negotiated a foreign exchange transaction with Alhassan Garba to the dollar equivalent of N1.1 billion, N962 million, as well as other sums.

EFCC alleged that they engaged in this transaction without going through the official foreign exchange market authorised by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The commission said the offences contravened the provisions of section 29(2) of the Foreign Exchange Monitoring and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 2004, and sections 18 and 27 of the Cybercrime (Prohibition) Act, 2015, as well as sections 18(2)(d) and 21(c) of the Money Laundering Act, 2021.

At the court session on Thursday, Clement Onwuenwunor, counsel to Friday, prayed the court to grant his client bail in liberal terms.

Emeka Opoko, the counsel to the first defendant, also asked the court to grant his client bail.

However, Buhari opposed the bail application.

“We have filed a counter affidavit on the 19th of March praying your lordship should deny bail because these set of defendants are the major kingpins in the scheme of the fraud,” she said.

She said the defendants are a flight risk.

“I urged the court to refuse bail and other accelerated trial,” the prosecution lawyer said.

In a ruling, Daniel Osiagor, the presiding judge, granted bail to Friday in the sum of N50 million and two sureties, who must be at the directorate level in the civil service.

But the court refused the first defendant’s bail and ordered his remand in Ikoyi Correctional Centre.

The third defendant, who has not filed bail, was also remanded in prison custody.

Osiagor adjourned the trial in the case to May 2.

However, the drama happened shortly after the court proceeding as EFCC operatives picked up Friday and bundled him into the commission’s bus outside the court premises.