GTB Official Jailed 3 Years for Fraud then Judge Gives Sweet Relief

Matilda Omonaiye/

A staff of Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) who secured a loan from the bank by creating a fake account has bagged three years imprisonment for fraud in Kano State.

The banker, Shehu Mohammed Aliyu, will however not serve the jail term if he could part with paltry N50, 000 fine for each year of the sentence, says the judge.

Justice Nasiru Saminu of the Kano State High Court sentenced the ex-banker, who was being prosecuted by the Kano Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

He was arraigned on January 30, 2020, alongside his wife, on a six-count charge of money laundering and obtaining money by false pretence, to which they pleaded not guilty.

The charges were, however, amended to three-counts in the course of the trial, to which the convict pleaded guilty while his wife was delisted from the charges after further investigation revealed that the convict committed the crime without her knowledge.

Following his guilty plea, prosecution counsel, Zarami Mohammed urged the court to convict and sentence him accordingly.

Justice Saminu convicted and sentenced him to one-year imprisonment on each of the three counts with options of N50,000 fine on each. The prison terms are to run concurrently.

The convict ran into trouble for creating a non-existent account holder, purporting the same to be a staff of Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, AKTH, Kano State, by presenting forged employment particulars of the hospital and fraudulently obtaining a loan through the fake account holder.

He deposited the loan sum into a joint account held with his wife, but subsequently withdrew the money without his wife’s knowledge hence she was removed from the charge.

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