Court jails company director for N128m fraud

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court sitting in the Jabi area of Abuja has convicted and sentenced the director of Asher Trust Investment Limited and Fifteen Network Limited, Daniel Ungbo Silas, to five years imprisonment for fraud.

The company director was sentenced to a five-year jail term by the presiding judge, Justice O. J. Enobie, on Friday, July 19, 2024.

Silas and his companies were prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on two-count charges bordering on criminal breach of trust and dishonest conversion of property to the tune of  N128 million.

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Count one of his charges read: “That you Daniel Ungbo Silas, being the Director of Fifteen Network Limited, sometime between the fifth day of October 2016 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of the Federal Capital Territory, while being entrusted with certain property to wit: the sum of N88,000,000 paid into Fifteen Network Limited’s Bank Account by Mohammed Awwal Musa for the purchase of United States Dollars, committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property when you dishonestly converted the said sum to your own use, thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 311 of the Penal Code Act Cap 532 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, (Abuja) 2024 and punishable under Section 312 of the same Act.”

In addition to his sentence, the convict is to refund the sum of N128 million, being the proceeds of his crime within 30 days.

According to the EFCC, Silas bagged his imprisonment when he dishonestly converted the sum of N128 million which was meant to be changed to U.S. dollars for his own use. He neither returned the money nor offered the dollar equivalent to his victim.

The Star