Fraudster poses as woman on Facebook to dupe man of N1.5M

The EFCC Kaduna Zonal Office, today, Monday, November 27,  arrraigned one Abubakar Isiyaku before Justice Mohammed Yahaya of the State High Court Kano on a one count charge bodering on Criminal Breach of Trust and Obtaining by False Pretence.

Investigations into the case revealed that, the accused who allegedly specialises in disguising as a female, fraudulently opened a facebook account with profile name Hajia Fatima Mohmammed and through this medium, continiously chat and eventually exchanged numbers with the complainant.

Along the line they arranged to meet one on one, but being that Abubakar was not a female as he protrayed all this while lied to the complainant on the day they were to meet that his mum was hospitalised in Lagos.

Having realised that he had earned the trust of the complainant, he decided to furthered his plan by informing him that his mum needs to be flown out for an emergency medical procedure in Saudi Arabia and would need the sum of Five Hundred Thousand Naira as loan to make arrangements.

Surprisingly, after a while the accused called the complainant with a purported Saudi line to intimate him about the progress of treatment, and asked for an additional Five Hundred Thousand Naira to further off set the remaining medical bills.

The complainant again sent the amount.

Having fully mapped out his plan, he then informed the complainant about their return to Nigeria and possibilty of refunding the borrowed monies but met another hitch as his father was purportedly arrested at the airport upon arrival by the EFCC, his accounts frozen and needed money to bail his father which will all be paid back from the sum of Two Billion Naira that was hidden somewhere in the father's house.

The complainant in his statement revealed that a total of One Million Five Hundred Thousand Naira was given to the accused so far and after sometime his phone lines were no longer reachable and efforts to retrieve all his money became futile.

The accused however pleaded not guilty to the charge and prosecuting counsel, Sa'ad Hanafi Sa'ad urged the court to fix a date for hearing while the defence counsel, Habib Shittu filed for the accused's bail which the prosecuting counsel asked for time to scrutinise and respond to.

The Judge subsequently ordered that the accused be remanded in prison custody pending ruling on his bail application. The case is adjourned to 18th and 19th of December, 2017 for ruling on bail application and commencemnt of trial.