Justice N. I. Afolabi of the Federal High Court sitting in Lafia, Nassarawa State has convicted and sentenced two underaged internet fraudsters: Akhetuamhen Clinton, 15, and Obinyan Peter, 17, to different suspended jail terms for cybercrime.
They were both jailed on July 5, 2022, after pleading guilty to one count of separate charges bordering on cybercrime.
This followed their arraignment by the Abuja Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
They pleaded guilty to the charge when it was read to them.
Justice Afolabi, therefore, convicted and sentenced Clinton to two years suspended sentence.
The judge ordered him to close down his bank account and banned him from using a phone or any computer except for academic purposes, till he turns 18 years.
Peter, on the other hand, has a one-year suspended sentence and is to return all proceeds of his crime to the Federal Government.
Both convicts are also to close down their social media accounts and barred from going on social media.
In addition, both convicts, with the supervision of officials of the EFCC and their parents or guardians, are expected to report back to the court on December 7, 2022, with their report cards and statements of good conduct from their teachers and schools.
A bad report will mean that they will be in prison to serve their jail terms.
Clinton bagged the suspended sentence for using his MacBook Air laptop to fraudulently impersonate Feng Zhang, living in China, with the intent of gaining advantage for himself, while Obiyan created a Facebook account
impersonating Jerry Wang from Hong Kong to take advantage of unsuspecting users of the app for his fraudulent purposes.
There have thousands of cases of individual getting sentence to prison for illegal behaviours such as fraud and other related activities but it seems people are still not learning to amend their ways to avoid such a consequence.
Cybercrime is highly punishable by law and one can spend year's behind bars depending on the nature of your crime.