From TONY JOHN, Port Harcourt
A Magistrate Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has remanded one Kingsley Nwachukwu to Correctional Centre, Port Harcourt, for defrauding a medical doctor, Paul Anya, the sum of N700,000.00.
Nwachukwu, a 40 years old man, allegedly committed the crime in 2019 and relocated to another residence before he was trailed and arrested by Rivers State Police Command, in January, 2021.
The accused, in charge sheet number, PMC/59C/2021, a case with the
Commissioner of Police, Joseph Mukan, was said to have presented himself as a sand dredger and defrauded the victim of the said amount of cash.
The counts preferred against him by the police read: “That you Kingsley Nwachukwu and others now at large, sometime in the month of May, 2019, at Umuechem village in Okehi Magisterial District, but triable in the Port Harcourt Magisterial District, did conspire among yourselves to commit felony to wit: obtaining by false pretence and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 8(a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2004, as applicable in Rivers State.
“That you Kingsley Nwachukwu on the same date and place in the aforesaid Magisterial District, did obtain cash sum of N700,000.00 only from one Dr. Paul John Anya with the pretence of partnering with him in a dredging business, a representation you know to be false, but presented it to be truth and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 1(1)(C) of the Advance Fee Fraud and other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2004, as applicable in Rivers State”.
When the matter came up in court yesterday, the charges against the suspect were not read and plea not taken.
But, the police prosecuting counsel, Umunnakwe Leticia, who did not oppose to an oral bail application made in court for the suspect, told the Magistrate that it took the police over two years to arrest the suspect, urging the court to apply caution.
The trial Magistrate, A.O Amadi-Nna, remanded the suspect to the Correctional Centre, Port Harcourt.
He adjourned till January 20, for hearing of bail application.