Abuja man Daniel Silas bags 5 years jail term over N128m forex fraud

Mr Daniel Ungbo Silas, a director of Asher Trust Investment Limited and Fifteen Network Limited has been sentenced to five years imprisonment after he was found guilty of charges bordering on N128 million fraud levelled against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

Silas and his companies were arraigned by the EFCC on two-count charges, bordering on criminal breach of trust and dishonest conversion of property to the tune of N128 million before Justice O. J. Enobie of the FCT High Court, sitting in Jabi, Abuja, Dele Oyewale, spokesperson for the anti-graft agency said in a statement on Friday.

According to the statement, Silas had dishonestly converted the sum of N128 million which was meant to be changed to United States Dollars for his own use. He neither returned the money nor offered the dollar equivalent to his victim.

Count one of his charge reads: “That you Daniel Ungbo Silas, being the Director of Fifteen Network Limited, sometime between the fifth day of October, 2016 in Abuja, within the jurisdiction of the Federal Capital Territory, while being entrusted with certain property to wit: the sum of N88,000,000 ( Eighty-eight Million Naira) paid into Fifteen Network Limited’s Bank Account by Mohammed Awwal Musa for the purchase of United States Dollars, committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the said property when you dishonestly converted the said sum to your own use, thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 311 of the Penal Code Act Cap 532 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, (Abuja) 2024 and punishable under Section 312 of the same Act.”

In addition to his sentence, the convict is to refund the sum of N128 million being the proceeds of his crime within 30 days.