Man, 45, jailed four years for fraud

Lagos —  An Ikeja Magistrate's Court, Monday, sentenced a 45- year-old businessman, Fred Olise, to four years imprisonment without an option of fine.

Delivering her judgment, Magistrate Abimbola Oshodi-Makanju, said the sentence was to run concurrently, stating that the defendant will serve his jail term and still pay the complainant N610,000.

The defendant was discharged and acquitted in counts one of the five-count charge levelled against him on the grounds of conspiracy that the prosecution extensively proved that he conspired.

He was convicted on count two and he is to serve two years on the grounds that he defrauded the complainant of N450,000, stating that the defendant admitted to collecting the said sum but that he has not met him before.

Oshodi-Makanju: ”Said I wonder how you will collect money from someone you have never met before. In his words he said the visa was tempered with. He is a big time fraudster and has been in the business for a very long time.”

She discharged him on count three on the grounds that counsel could not prove that he stole the money because it was the complainant that gave him the money willingly.

He was found guilty and convicted on count four and is to serve two years jail term on the grounds that he stole N160,000.

However he was discharged and acquitted in count five on the grounds of stealing.

Fred Olise, had been arraigned on February, 22, 2010, on a five count charges of conspiracy and stealing.

Olise and others still at large had on sometime in March 2009, at Ikorodu area of Lagos, defrauded one James Ugbo, of N610,000, under the pretence of helping him to procure a genuine  Switzerland Visa, which he knew to be false.

The police prosecutor inspector Samson Ekikere, had told the court that the defendant stole the sum of N 160,000, from the complainant, stating that he was going to use it as his air ticket to en route him to Switzerland, which he knew to be false.

The prosecutor, had said that the offence committed was punishable under section 517 A, 419, Cap 17 Vol ll and 390 (8) b, Cap 17 voll ii of the criminal laws of Lagos state 2003.