Duping
By Deborah Akpede
Ikeja, Dec.17, 2019(NAN) A 32-year-old man, Valentine Thomas, was on Tuesday brought before an Ikeja Magistrates’ Court charged with duping a bureau de change operator of N725,000.
Thomas, whose address and occupation are unknown, however, pleaded innocence to the charge of stealing.
The prosecutor, Insp. Adegoke Philip, told the court that the defendant committed the offence on Aug.19 in Ikoyi.
He said that the defendant stole the amount belonging to one Mr Bashiru Usman.
The prosecutor said, “The defendant called the complainant to a hotel to buy $2,000 from him.
“The defendant asked the complainant to give him the naira currency equivalent to $2,000.
“He said that he would go to his room upstairs to bring the dollar currency equivalent for the complainant.
“The complainant gave him N725,000 and the defendant went upstairs.
“After some minutes, the defendant did not show up with the $2,000.
“The complainant decided to look for him but the defendant was nowhere to be found.
“The complainant was told that the defendant did not lodge in the hotel.
“It was at this state that it dawned on the complainant that he had been duped,’’ the prosecutor told the court.
Philip said that the complainant sighted the defendant after some months and he was arrested.
The prosecutor said that the alleged offence contravened Section 287 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the section stipulates three years’ imprisonment for stealing.
The magistrate, Mrs O.A. Akokhia, gave the defendant bail of N100,000 with two sureties in the like terms.
Akokhia ruled that the sureties must be gainfully employed and show evidence of two years’ tax payment to the Lagos State Government (LASG).
She then adjourned the case until Jan.16, 2020. (NAN)
DOA/AIB/PAD
===========
Edited by Abdulfatah Babatunde/Peter Dada