Court jails 18 foreigners in Lagos for cybercrime, orders deportation

A Federal High Court docket in Ikoyi, Lagos, has sentenced 18 foreign nationals, including 15 Chinese, two Filipinos, and one Pakistani, to detention heart on separate bills bordering on cyber-terrorism and internet fraud.

The convictions were secured by the Lagos Zonal Directorate 1 of the Financial and Financial Crimes Price (EFCC) sooner than Justices Chukwujekwu Aneke, Ayokunle Faji, and Yellim Bogoro.

The convicts are Peng Li Huan, Zhang Jin Rong, He Kun, Rachelle Cabalona, Caselyn Pionela, Guo Prolonged Prolonged, Zhang Hua Zhai, Lin Hao Bo, Chen Fusheng, Chen Dong Dong, Wang Gong Lin, Pan Cai Yu, Huang Ren Jian, Zhang Xiao Lei, Khurram Shahzad, Chen Yuan, Wu Yong An and Chen Xin.

Even handed some of the bills acknowledged that in December 2024, Caselyn Pionela, some of the Filipinos, labored with Nigerian youths to put off of us’s identities online and fake to be foreigners to produce money.

The court acknowledged the act constituted a violation of both the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc) Act, 2015 (as amended in 2024), and the Terrorism (Prevention, Prohibition) Act, 2022.

Even handed one of Pionela’s bills reads: “That you, Caselyn Pionela, sometime in December 2024, in Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Friendly Court docket, willfully triggered to be accessed, computer systems organized to critically destabilize and wreck the fundamental economic and social structure of Nigeria as soon as you procured/employed Nigerian youths for id theft and to withhold themselves out as contributors of foreign nationality, with the intent to attain monetary advantage for yourselves and you thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable below Half 18 of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc) Act, 2015 (As amended 2024) and Half 2(3)(d) of the Terrorism (Prevention, Prohibition) Act, 2022.”

All of them pleaded “responsible” to the bills as soon as they were read to them.

In scrutinize of their pleas, the prosecution counsel, Spiff Owede, Bilkisu Buhari-Bala, Chinenye Okezie, Ebuka Okongwu, B.M. Isah and Nambam Mutfwang, respectively prayed the court to convict the defendants and also picture the forfeiture of the total shows recovered from them.

The judges stumbled on them responsible of the bills and convicted them accordingly.

The court sentenced each and each person to 1 One year in detention heart with the likelihood of paying a stunning of N1 million.

The court also ordered the Nigeria Immigration Service to deport them to their home nations within seven days after completing their sentences.

The judge also ordered that the items recovered from them be forfeited to the Federal Authorities of Nigeria.

The defendants are fragment of the 792 suspects that EFCC agents earn detained on suspicion of cyberterrorism.