Fake Investment Scheme: Court Jails Man 3yrs For Scamming 3,000 Nigerians

Fake Investment Scheme: Court Jails Man 3yrs For Scamming 3,000 Nigerians

Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye of the Lagos State High Court in Ikeja on Tuesday sentenced a 37-year-old man, Benjamin Bright to a three-year jail term for duping about 3,000 Nigerians of about N4.9m through a scam investment scheme.

Justice Ipaye handed down the verdict after Bright, who had initially pleaded not guilty to the charge admitted committing the crime.

The convict was charged to court on a 21 count charge of fraud and issuance of dud cheque by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commissions following the receipt of about 50 different petitions from members of the public against him.

While reviewing the facts of the case, the prosecutor, Emmanuel Jackson, said Bright perpetrated the crime through a mouth-watering but sham investment scheme he had purportedly launched and advertised in a magazine sometime in 2008.

Jackson, who described Bright as a skillful and competent young man, said the convict steadily scammed several Nigerians, including aged pensioners, for about three years before he was eventually apprehended.

The offence was said to contravene sections 383 (1) and (9) of the Criminal Code, Laws of Lagos State 2003.

Though the convict had spending over two years in custody awaiting trial, Justice Ipaye held that the three years prison term would commence from Tuesday.