EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde

 

 

By  Ike Abonyi

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has arraigned a former female banker, Mrs. Marilyn-Joan Obiora before Justice Umar of the Federal High Court sitting in Umuahia, Abia State on a 15 count charge bordering on conspiracy and fraud.
EFCC said the suspect is standing trial alone “as her cohorts are presently at large.”

The accused person pleaded not guilty to the charge when it was read to her.

 

Consequently, the prosecution counsel C.A Okoli asked the court to remand her in prison custody pending the commencement of trial.

Justice Umar remanded the accused following the failure of the defence counsel, Adetayo Oyedele to present before the court a written application for bail.

 

EFCC statement said that Obiora’s arraignment followed a petition by one Mr. Stephen Inegbu, a zonal security supervisor of Diamond Bank Plc in Port Harcourt , on some sharp practices by the suspect and others at large, detected during a routine examination of customers’ accounts in the bank.

According to Mr. Inegbu, the Bank’s inspection unit unravelled three cases of fraud involving the following amounts: N26 million, N91, 600,000. and N8 million respectively.

 

Further investigations revealed that Marilyn-Joan Obiora masterminded the fraudulent withdrawals that amounted to a total of N125, 600,000.00 with some help from four other officials of the bank namely: Eze Nwekwe, Emmanuel Nwosu, Emeka Owo and Emmanuel Okebugwu.

The case was adjourned to July 18th and 19th, 2012, for hearing of bail application and commencement of trial.

 

In a related development the commission has also arraigned one Abubakar Soro before Justice B.O. Quadri of the Federal High Court, Gombe, on a 6 count charge bordering on possession and dealing in counterfeit United States Dollar notes. The offence is punishable under Sections 4 (1) and 5 (1) of the Counterfeit Currency (Special Provision) Act CAP C35 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.

-ThisDay

Posted by admin on Jun 2 2012. Filed under EFCC Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry