A Federal High Court in Lagos has remanded an alleged WhatsApp hacker, Stephen Andrew Ojo, at the Ikoyi Centre of the Nigerian Correctional Services.
Justice Akintayo Aluko remanded the defendant following his arraignment by the officers of the Zone 2 Police Command, Onikan, Lagos.
The police arraigned him on four counts bordering on conspiracy, identity theft, and obtaining by false pretence.
Earlier, the police prosecutor, Zebedee Arekhandia, informed the court on Wednesday during the arraignment that the defendant and others still at large, on September 12, 2023, at Ajao Estate, Lagos, planned among themselves and hacked the WhatsApp of one Mrs. Laraba Shuaibu, and impersonated her.
Arekhandia also informed the court that the alleged WhatsApp hacker and others now at large used the hacked platform to fraudulently obtain the sum of N700,000 from one Mrs Osasu Tina Eriamiatoe.
The prosecutor said that the offences committed violated Sections 8(a) and 1(3)(a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006, and Sections 24 (2)(a)(b) (i)(ii) and (iii) of the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act, 2015 and Section 15 (1) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2022 as amended in 2012.
While pleading guilty to the offences, the defendant told the court that he was not the person who committed the alleged crime.
Following his guilty plea and his statement, Justice Aluko, who is the vacation judge, ordered that he should be remanded at the Ikoyi centre till January 24, 2024, when the court’s Chief Judge would reassign his case file to the substantive judge.
