Court jails fake EFCC operative for defrauding Belgian woman of €45,000

• Ifechukwu Clinton, 30, was convicted for online fraud.
• Clinton defrauded Axelle Mahieu, a Belgian educator and caregiver of €45,000 in a well-orchestrated online fraud scheme.
• Clinton was sentenced to one year imprisonment on May 3, 2023.

A Nigerian man named Ume Ifechukwu Clinton has been convicted and sentenced to one year imprisonment by Justice Mojisola Dada of the Special Offences Court in Lagos for defrauding a Belgian educator and caregiver, Axelle Mahieu, of €45,000 through a well-orchestrated online fraud. Clinton, who was 30 years old at the time of his sentencing, was arraigned on February 22, 2023, on an amended three-count charge bordering on possession of fraudulent documents and impersonation.

Clinton had approached the prosecution for a plea bargain after realizing the weight of evidence gathered against him. This led to the amended charge, which included two counts of possession of fraudulent documents containing false pretense. The first document was an EFCC ID card with Clinton’s photo, name, and a staff number 1069. The second document was a set of WhatsApp correspondences, where Clinton held himself with a fictitious identity, Petrous, a crypto investment expert.

Following his guilty plea, Bilikisu Buhari, counsel for the EFCC, called a witness, Damilare Adeosun, an investigative officer with the EFCC, who testified against the defendant, and through whom several documents were tendered in evidence against him.

Adeosun narrated how the EFCC acted on an intelligence report from the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ), which indicated that Clinton disguised as an EFCC officer to defraud the Belgian. Mahieu was deceived into believing that Clinton was an operative of the EFCC after he presented her with a fake EFCC ID card.

Adeosun further testified that Clinton had gone into hiding after the fraud, and investigators had to deploy technology to locate him on October 18, 2022, at No 46 Atoke Gbadebo Street, Isheri, Lagos. During his arrest, the fake ID card was recovered from him along with several expensive wristwatches and a bundle of cash totaling about N150,000.

Clinton volunteered his statement under interrogation by operatives and also confessed to the alleged crime. He admitted that he made the forged ID card in Owerri, with N3,000, to gain the victim’s trust.

Investigation confirmed that Clinton transferred money received from his victim through cryptocurrency to his own Binance account and exchanged same through p2p, crediting same in Naira to his bank accounts in Nigeria. He depleted all the money using it to buy expensive wristwatches, a piece of land for clubbing, and sharing with random friends. But he never used any for cryptocurrency investment as he promised his victim.

This conviction is a warning to individuals who engage in online fraud, especially using false pretense and identity theft to defraud unsuspecting victims. The EFCC’s investigation, as well as the successful prosecution, demonstrates the effectiveness of technology in law enforcement.

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