The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has revealed more evidence against Nigerian musician, Azeez Fashola, popularly known as Naira Marley, as his trial resumed at a Lagos High Court on Tuesday.
Naira Marley was arraigned by the EFCC on May 20, 2019 on 11 counts bordering on conspiracy, possession of counterfeit credit cards and fraud, to which he pleaded not guilty.
The charge with suit number FHC/L/178C/19 was filed before a Lagos State High Court.
Some of the credit cards, according to the EFCC, bore the names- Nicole Louise Malyon, and Timea Fedorne Tatar.
The alleged crime contravenes the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act and the Cyber Crimes Act.
The second prosecution witness, Augustine Anosike, a forensic expert with the EFCC told Justice Nicholas Oweibo how several credit card numbers were extracted while analysing the contents of a total of 2,410 messages found in the defendant’s mobile phone, Politics Nigeria reports.
At the sitting, Augustine, who continued his examination in chief, told the court that Exhibit F was a conclusion of his analysis of the defendant’s iPhone X version 10.6, model A 1901, with number 07427343432 and an email, [email protected].
He also gave the IMEL number of the iPhone as: 35304509527532 as well as the SIM ICCID number as 8923420035948359826.
Led in evidence by the prosecution counsel, Rotimi Oyedepo, he also told the court that “Apple iPhone is a sophisticated device capable of storing a large volume of information.
“It is the SIM card that basically identifies users of applications like WhatsApp. It, therefore, means that as long as a number has already been registered with a particular WhatsApp account, it matters less if such a user leaves the country.
“There are cases where a WhatsApp application can still be used even though the registered SIM card is not inserted in the phone. The chatting app used in the analysed device was WhatsApp.
“A total of 977 Short Message Service (SMS) and 1433 chat messages were discovered.
“We also discovered seven pending status update messages. On November 26, 2018, there was an outgoing message registered about 3.32 pm, with a credit card number 5264711020433662.
“This message was sent to one Yadd. On December 11, 2018, there was an incoming message to the defendant’s device which read: ‘Your One Time Passcode (OTP) to verify your mobile number is 248716; wasn’t you, please call us on 63450808500.’”
According to him, another message was sent at 5.06 pm by one Hiya Bayi to a recipient with the name Raze on the same say.
The content of the message, he told the court, was another credit card number 42658840359132.
“The number of the sender is +447426343432, while that of the receiver is +447365280441.
“The incoming message reflected at 6.18 pm showed ‘Not recognized’.
“Other messages received on the same date include: ‘due to try in 20 minutes,’” he added.
The prosecution witness, while giving further evidence, told the court that there was an incoming message which read: “Tried and it was unsuccessful; sure you are not rinsing it out then giving it to me to try.”
This was said to have been received on December 12, 2018, at 10.16 pm.
The second prosecution witness also revealed several credit card numbers sent on different dates and times as well as OTP codes sent found in the defendant’s phone.
All the analysed texts were fully contained in a Compact Disc (CD), the prosecution counsel told the court. He noted that the prosecution had only printed out those portions it considered material to its case.
However, he asked both the court and the defence counsel, Olalekan Ojo, SAN, if the prosecution could bring a projector to play the CD in the open court or not, which was granted by Justice Oweibo.
The matter was adjourned to October 27, 2021, for the prosecution to play the CD on a projector, as Ojo did not raise any objection to the request by the prosecution.
