2 Held In EFCC Custody Over N14.6m Fraud

An Abuja High Court on Monday ordered that Daniel Edeh, a director of Lupeli Oil (Nigeria) Ltd, be remanded in EFCC custody for an alleged N8.6 million advanced fee fraud.

EFCC ‘s counsel, Mr Cosmas Ugwu, told the court that Edeh obtained the money under false pretence and issued a dud cheque for the amount to Global Royal Company (Nigeria) Ltd.

The EFCC also arraigned a contractor, Chinedu Ebere, for allegedly defrauding a company, Dortmond (Nigeria) Ltd of N6 million.

Ugwu said that Ebere violated a contractual agreement, obtained the amount from Dortmond but failed to execute the contract.

He said the offences contravened Section 312 of the Penal Code and Section 1 (1) of the Advanced Fee Fraud Act 2004.

Ugwu said if convicted, each of the accused persons would be liable to spend seven years in jail.

The accused persons, however, pleaded not guilty.

Counsel to  the accused, Messrs Cashmir Nwachukwu and Abe Ozioko, in separate oral applications, prayed the court to admit their clients to bail.

They argued that the offences were bailable.

The counsel further argued that the accused had reasonable sureties to take them on bail, saying that their clients  had been on administrative bail granted by the EFCC before now.

Ugwu, however, objected to the application, saying that the accused would jump bail.

In his ruling, Justice Abubakar Umar ordered that they be remanded in EFCC’s custody, pending a ruling on the bail applications.