Adamawa court jails woman, three others for 160 years over fake naira notes

A Federal High Court, sitting in Yola, Adamawa State, has sentenced four persons to 160 years in prison for dealing in fake naira notes.

In a statement issued by the spokesperson of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), Rasheedat Okoduwa, the suspects — Hadiza Belo, Mohammed Dauda, Bello Salisu, Ali Adamu and Hassan Bello, were involved in a deal to exchange the sum of N5m counterfeit notes for N1m real notes, adding that Hassan, a native doctor, could not be sentenced because of his death before conviction.

The statement partly reads: “A Federal High Court sitting in Yola, Adamawa State, has sentenced four persons, including a woman, to 160 years’ imprisonment on a multiple-count charge of conspiracy and possession of counterfeit bank notes.
“Justice Abdulazeez Anka, who handed down the sentences to the convicts in the case brought by the ICPC, ruled that they would spend 10 years in prison on each of the four counts preferred against them.
“Three of the convicts, Hadiza Bello, Mohammed Dauda and Bello Salisu, had in March 2017, left Kaduna and were joined by the fourth convict, Ali Adamu, from Kano, to meet a native doctor, Hassan Bello, who was a counterfeiter at Wamdeo Uba, Borno State, with the intention to procure about N5m counterfeit bank notes to exchange for about N1m genuine bank notes from a customs officer.
“The deal with the customs officer did not go through for undisclosed reasons. However, as they made their way back, they were caught at a checkpoint on Girei-Yola Road, with counterfeit N1000 bank notes to the value of N5, 504,000 by soldiers on duty and subsequently handed over to the ICPC.”