Court remands Mompha’s alleged accomplices in prison

Lebanese and Nigerian who are accomplices of Mompha

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Thursday arraigned the alleged accomplices of social media celebrity, Ismaila Mustapha, popularly known as Mompha.

Kayode Philip, alias Voice of the King, and a Lebanese, Hamza Koudeih, were arraigned at the Federal High Court in Lagos for allegedly engaging in cyber fraud and laundering the sums of $7.06 million, £1 million and €80,000.

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Mompha was on Monday arraigned for alleged N32.9 billion fraud.

The two alleged accomplices were arraigned on 25 counts and also accused of attempting to retain the sums of $6 million and £1 million in the Bank of China.

The EFCC said they also “knowingly engaged in computer phishing and spamming which resulted in acquiring sensitive information” from various emails.

It also said they were found in possession of electronic spamming tools such as MailListFetcher.exe; Tunnelier.exe; spamassassin.exe; Fast Email Extractor.exe; and AtomicMailSender.exe.

The EFCC added that Mr Philip had illegal possession of various credit cards issued by JP Morgan Chase; Chase Bank of the United States of America; American Express; and Wells Fargo.

The anti-graft agency said Philip procured Dakota Entertainment Limited and Influx Computer and Hardware Limited, for N11 million and N19.25 million, respectively from proceeds of fraud.

The alleged offences contravene the provisions of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act 2015; as well as Section 27(1)(b) of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) Act 2015.

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Both men pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Justice Muslim Hassan adjourned till December 5 to take the bail applications and ordered that the defendants be remanded in the Nigerian Correctional Service custody.