Babatunde Adesanya and Akinpelu Abass have been arraigned at a federal high court in Abuja for allegedly defrauding the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia of €2.3 million COVID-19 funds.
Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation (AGF), represented the federal government at the arraignment of the suspects on Monday.
The suspects were arraigned on a 10-count charge before Anwuli Chikere, judge of the federal high court.
Adesanya, a 50-year-old master’s degree holder in cell biology, and Abass, 41-year-old managing director of Musterpoint Investment Nigeria Limited, were arrested by the cybercrime unit of the Nigerian Police Force and INTERPOL in September.
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The suspects were alleged to have cloned the corporate website of ILBN Holdings BV, Holland, to defraud one Freiherr Fredrick Von Hahn, a representative of the German state.
According to a statement in September, Frank Mba, police spokesman, said investigations revealed that the suspects collaborated with one Eduardus Boomstra and Geradius Maulder, their Holland-based cohorts, “specialised in identity theft, cyber-stalking, cloning of corporate websites amongst other cyber mischiefs to defraud unsuspecting members of the public across the world”.
“In this instance, the suspects fraudulently obtained from Mr Freiherr Fredrick Von Hahn the sum of 1.5m Euro and another 880,000 Euro as advanced payment for the supply of COVID-19 PPEs valued at 14.7million Euros,” Mba said.
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When the PPE was not delivered, the German representative visited the corporate office of ILBN Holdings BV in Holland to seek reasons for the delay in supplying the items.
He was told the company never did business with him and that the transaction was a scam.
Consequently, the case was reported to the police in Holland and this led to the arrest of Boomstra and Maulder in Holland, and the investigations extended to Nigeria.
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