Court Jails Ecobank Staff One Year for N2.4m Cybercrime in Lagos

Court

By JUMOKE SANNI
Justice Yellim Bogoro of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos, on Monday, June 16, 2025, convicted and sentenced one Solomon Stephen Ufayo, a staff of Ecobank Plc, to one-year imprisonment for cybercrime.

The convict was arraigned on Friday, May 16, 2025 by the Lagos Zonal Directorate 2 of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on a one -count charge bordering on cybercrime to the tune of N2,404,000(Two Million Four Hundred and Four Thousand Naira).

The charge reads: “That you, Solomon Stephen Ufayo, between the 10th to the 28th day of March, 2025, in Lagos within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, while working for Ecobank Nigeria Limited as a Relief Teller, fraudulently represented yourself as Ogunfodunrin Omowunmi Ajoke, by posting false Deposit and Withdrawal Tellers on her Ecobank account number 2801086259 with intent to gain advantage for yourself and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 22(2)(b)(i) of the CYBERCRIME (PROHIBITION, PREVENTION etc)Act, 2015 and punishable by Section 22(2)(b) of the same Act.”

The defendant pleaded “guilty” to the charge when it was read to him.

Following his “guilty” plea, the prosecution counsel, Abdulhamid L.Tukur, called on David Ngale Gajere, an operative of the EFCC, to review the facts of the case.

Gajere, in his review of the fact, told the court that Ufayo, who is a Relief Teller with the Bank, fraudulently represented himself as one Miss. Omowunmi Ajoke, a customer of the Bank, by posting false deposits into her Ecobank account and moving the total sum of N2, 404,000, which he filled out in withdrawal deposit slips without her consent and paid the same into his own Opay account.

He had further informed the court that the defendant provided an extra-judicial statement and also issued a bank draft for N2,404,000 as restitution to the petitioner.