By ABDULWAHAB ABDULAH & KEHINDE OLASANMI

IKEJA – A Bureau de Change operator, Mr. Adewale Alausa, will spend the next seven years behind bar for defrauding another bureau operator of $35, 000.

Justice Joseph Oyewole of an Ikeja High Court, who handed down the judgment, found Alausa guilty of the one-count charge of obtaining money under pretence preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

He was said to have committed the offence on October 27, 2008, contrary to Section 1 (3) of the Advance Fee Fraud and other Related Offences Act No. 14 of 2006.

According to the prosecution, Mr. K.O. Oni, the convict had on May 23, 2008, in Ikeja obtained $35, 000 from IBW Bureau de Change Ltd, through Mrs Mercy Udoh, stating he had a customer that would exchange the dollars for the equivalent of N4,165,000 and promised to return same that day.

While giving evidence before the court as prosecution witness, however, Mrs. Udoh alleged that though Alausa wrote an undertaking and even told her he was on the way to the bank to pay the money as promised that day, he never paid the money but gave false excuses.

The prosecution concluded its case after calling five witnesses and tendering 36 exhibits and Alausa commenced his defence. According to him, he didn’t collect the dollars from the owners with the intent to defraud but added that he defaulted because he could not find his customer who took the dollars again.

Also under cross-examination, he admitted not only that he was arrested a few months after he collected the money but also that he made extra-judicial statements which were admitted as exhibits before the court.