Court grants N50m bail to MTN’s N1.9 billion fraud suspects

Justice Akintayo Aluko of a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, yesterday, granted a N50 million bail sum to suspects who allegedly defrauded MTN Nigeria Communication of the sum of N1.9 billion.

The trial judge granted them bail after hearing two separate bail applications filed by the defendants. Justice Aluko also ordered the defendants to provide two sureties each and one of the sureties must be a civil servant either in the federal or Lagos state employment, who must be grade level 14 and above, while the second surety, must be a landed property owner within the jurisdiction of the court, must provide evidence of ownership, and must swear to an affidavit of means.

According to the judge, the civil servant must produce reference letter of his place of work, and letter of last promotion, while the defendants must submit two recent passport photographs to the registrar of the court.

Justice Aluko ordered the prosecution to verify all documents submitted by the sureties, including their residential addresses. The court further remanded the defendants in the custody of the Nigerian Correctional Services (NCoS) pending the fulfilment of their bail conditions.

The Police Special Fraud Unit, Milverton Road Ikoyi, Lagos, had last week arraigned the duo of Timothy Fashina Oluwabukola and Anthony Imonina Odemerho, said to be a student of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic (MAPOLY) Abeokuta, Ogun State, and proprietor of Resign Regal Academy in Benin City, Edo State respectively for allegedly hacking into MTN web-based platform known as Application Programming Interface (API), and stole N1, 9 billion worth of airtime and data.

The defendants were arraigned on a four-count charge of conspiracy, unauthorised access into the company’s web-based platform known as Application Programming Interface (API) and unlawful conversion. The two men and others, who are at large, were alleged to have committed the offences between January and April this year, in Lagos and Edo states.