Nigeria’s anti-graft agency has arraigned Hamza Koudeih, a Lebanese and associate of Mompha of fraud to the tune of $7.06m.

On Thursday, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission arraigned the duo of Kayode Philip, alias Voice of the King, and Hamza Koudeih, a Lebanese, for allegedly engaging in cyber fraud and laundering the sums of $7.06m, £1m and €80,000.   Koudeih is said to be an associate of internet celebrity, Ismaila Mustapha, alias Mompha, who was on Monday arraigned for alleged N32.9bn fraud.   Philip and Koudeih, who were arraigned on 25 counts before the Federal High Court in Lagos, were also accused of attempting to retain the sums of $6m and £1m in the Bank of China.   The EFCC said they also “knowingly engaged in computer phishing and spamming which resulted in acquiring sensitive information” from various emails. The prosecution said they were found in possession of electronic spamming tools such as MailListFetcher.exe;Tunnelier.exe; spamassassin.exe; Fast Email Extractor.exe; and AtomicMailSender.exe.   It said Philip also had illegal possession of various credit cards issued by JP Morgan Chase; Chase Bank of the United States of America; American Express; and Wells Fargo.   Philip, according to the EFCC, also procured Dakota Entertainment Limited and Influx Computer and Hardware Limited, for N11m and N19.25m, respectively.   The EFCC said the funds were proceeds of fraud.   The anti-graft agency said Koudeih and Philip acted contrary to the provisions of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act 2015; as well as Section 27(1)(b) of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) Act 2015.   When the charges were read to them, they both pleaded not guilty.   The prosecuting counsel for the EFCC, Muhammed Abbas, prayed the court to fix a date for trial and to remand the defendants in the prison custody pending trial.   The defence counsel, Oluwadare Falana and Abdulamid Mohammed, told the court that they filed bail applications for their clients.   Justice Muslim Hassan adjourned till December 5 to take the bail applications.

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