Blessing Iruoma, Port Harcourt
The Port Harcourt Zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arraigned one Patrick Ighalo before a Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State over alleged N1.75million fraud.
Ighalo who was first arraigned on Tuesday, before Justice J.K. Omotosho is facing a four count charge of advance fee fraud.
One of the counts reads: “That you Patrick Ighalo and Raymond Otamere Ibie between 10th and 15th of April, 2015, at Port Harcourt, within the jurisdiction of this honourable Court with intent to defraud did obtained the sum of One Million, Seven Hundred and Fifty Thousand (N1.750, 000) Naira only from Evelyn Obene under the false pretence that the sum was an investment in an oil business and which pretence you knew to be false and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1(1)( a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 1 (3) of the same Act”.
When the charge was read to the defendant, he pleaded not guilty. The defence counsel, T.J. Kurukurugbor, however, pleaded the court to grant the defendant bail.
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Following the plea by the defence counsel, the prosecution counsel R.E. Alao, prayed the court for a new date for trial while the defendant is remanded in Port Harcourt Correctional Centre.
Reacting to the bail application, Justice Omotosho granted the defendant bail in the sum of N3 million and two sureties in like sum.
According to the prosecuting Judge, the sureties must be a grade level 10 officer and must deposit his passport photograph with the court.
The case was adjourned till March 12, 2020 for trial.
The Nigerian Xpress gathered that Patrick Ighalo ran into trouble following a petition by Mrs. Evelyn Obene, who alleged that she met him and Raymond Otamere Ibie sometime in January 2015 in Calabar and that they convinced her to invest One Million Seven Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira in an Automotive Gas Oil business.
The money was transferred to Ighalo’s Ecobank account number 2221007816. She also alleged that she gave Ighalo Nine Hundred and Fifty-Thousand Naira (N950,000) cash for barge repairs and logistics; while another Two Hundred and Seventy Thousand Naira (N270,000) was transferred to Mr. Raymond Otamere Ibie’s Account.
She claimed that after paying the monies, the suspects became evasive and all efforts to recover the funds proved futile.
