A woman identified as Patience Simon Robert was, on Wednesday, arraigned before Justice Simon Aboki of the Nasarawa State High Court, Lafia by the Makurdi Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for alleged impersonation and obtaining money by false pretence.
According to the Makurdi Zonal Office of the commission, luck ran out Patience Simon when she was petitioned by a victim who alleged that she collected N1.5million from him under the pretence of helping his children secure job with EFCC.
Investigations according to EFCC showed that the defendant who was arrested while posing as an EFCC officer is an accomplice in the business of defrauding unsuspecting members of the public seeking employment in the Commission and Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).
Over N11 million, made from victims was traced to her, with an Abuja-based victim paying as much as N4.5million for an EFCC job, as she posed as the Commission’s non-existent “Director of Intelligence.”
According to EFCC, the impersonator had on several occasions been arrested for impersonation and fraud by the police and other security agencies and was once dragged before a Magistrate Court in Minna, Niger State for the act of obtaining money by false pretence.
One of the two-count charge against her read, “That you, Patience Simon Robert, sometime between August and October 2020, in Akwanga, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, with intent to defraud, obtained the sum of N1,500,000 from one Hosea Emmanuel Kuje via your UBA account number 3095378247, under the pretence that you were a staff of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and would secure jobs for his children and brother in the EFCC and the Nigeria Customs Service, which you knew was false and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1(1) and punishable under Section 1 (3) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act 2006.”
Patience Simon Robert, however, pleaded “not guilty” to the charges.
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The prosecuting counsel, George Chia-Yakua, asked the court for a trial date, while Patience Simon Robert was to be remanded in a correctional centre pending trial.
On his submission, defence counsel, Esson Agu Agah, asked for her bail on liberal terms.
Ruling on the bail condition, Justice Aboki granted the accused bail in the sum of N2 million with one surety in like sum.
According to justice Aboki, the surety must have a landed property within the jurisdiction of the court with a Certificate of Occupancy and must deposit two recent passport photographs with the court.
The accused was ordered to be remanded in a correctional centre pending the perfection of her bail condition, and the case was then adjourned to January 15, 2021, for trial.
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