Two persons, Mary Aweh and Samuel Oluwadamilare Olaleye were on Monday arraigned by the Kaduna Zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Monday, before Justice M.T. Tukur of Kaduna State High Court, Kaduna, bordering on advance fee fraud.
Count one of the six-count charge brought against them read: “that you Mary Aweh and Olaleye Samuel Oluwadamilare, sometime in March 2018, in Kaduna within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, with intent to defraud, did conspire to commit an offence to wit: obtaining a total sum of N 4.240 million (Four Million, Two Hundred and Forty Thousand Naira) only from the duo of Asika Tochukwu Casmir and Daniel Alabi Monday under the false pretence that you can obtain Canadian visa for them, which pretence you knew to be false and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 8(a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act 2006 and punishable under the Section 1(3) of the same Act.”
After the charges were read, the defendants pleaded not guilty, prompting the prosecution counsel, Jamil Musa, to ask the court to fix a date for commencement of the hearing.
The defence counsel, A.L Damsaka however urged the court to grant his clients bail.
The judge granted bail to the defendants in the sum of N2 million each and a surety in like sum.
Justice Tukur said that the sureties must be of good character and possess evidence of tax payment for the past three years.
They were remanded at the Correctional Centre pending the perfection of their bail terms.
It will be recalled that the defendants, as promoters of Victoria Travels Resorts Ltd, allegedly obtained the said sum from Asika and Alabi under the pretext of helping them to procure Canadian visas and other arrangements.
According to the EFCC’s Head of Media and Publicity, Wilson Uwujaren, in 2018, the complainants engaged the defendants to arrange a trip to the Turks and Caicos Islands and paid N1 million each.
However, two days to their departure, one of the defendants informed them that the trip had been put on hold.
She had offered an alternative – a visa to Canada – which they accepted and paid N4.240 million each for a visa, consultancy and air tickets, and after a long wait, the second defendant Olaleye called and delivered the so-called Canadian visa and Yellow Fever cards.
He also informed them that they would be travelling through Kenya.
But upon arrival in Nairobi, Kenyan Immigration officials arrested Asika and Alab for the possession of fake yellow fever cards and detained them.
When they were eventually released, Asika and Alabi reportedly made efforts to contact Aweh to get her Kenyan representative to assist with the connecting flight to Canada but her phone lines were switched off.
The complainants were re-arrested by Kenyan Immigration and deported to Nigeria.
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