Tunde Bakare
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Monday, June 23, 2025, presented its first prosecution witness, PW1, Chidubem Ogbura, a banker with Union Bank Plc, in the trial of Friday Audu, Huang Haoyu and An Hongxu over an alleged N3.4bn, $2,562,203 cybercrime before Justice Daniel Osiagor of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos.
They are among the 792 –member syndicates of cryptocurrency investment and romance fraud arrested on December 19, 2024 in Lagos in a surprise operation tagged “Eagle Flush Operation” by EFCC operatives.
The defendants, alongside a company, Genting International Co. Ltd., are standing trial on an 11-count charge bordering on cyber-terrorism, internet fraud and money laundering to the tune of N3,407,824,740.78 (Three Billion, Four Hundred and Seven Million, Eight Hundred Twenty-Four Thousand, Seven Hundred and Forty Naira, Seventy Eight kobo), and $2,562,203 ( Two Million, Five Hundred and Sixty Two Thousand, Two Hundred and Three United States Dollars) brought against them by the Lagos Zonal Directorate 1 of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,
One of the counts reads: “That you, Huang Haoyu, a.k.a Ken, Audu Friday, An Hongxu, Duliang Pan (at large) and Genting International Co. Ltd, sometime in 2024 in Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, conspired to willfully cause to be accessed, computer systems organised to seriously destabilise the economic and social structure of Nigeria (which prohibits and prevents cyber and related crimes) when you, with intent to gain a financial advantage for yourselves and cronies, procured and or employed Nigerian youths to falsely represent themselves as persons of foreign nationalities, and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 27 of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) Act, 2015 (As Amended, 2024) and punishable under Section 18 of the same Act”.
At the resumed sitting on Monday, the prosecution presented its first witness, PW1, Chidubem Ogbura, a banker with Union Bank.
Led in evidence by the prosecutor, Bilkisu Buhari-Bala, Ogbura told the court that he received a letter of investigation from the EFCC on December 16, 2024, requesting the account opening package, statement of account and certification of identification.
Ogbura, thereafter, identified the response from Union Bank to the EFCC.
He also stated that “The person who signed the certificate of identification is out of the country on another assignment and the bank nominated me to stand in for him.”
Buhari-Bala sought to tender the documents, including the Union Bank report on account opening package and statement of account.
They were admitted and marked as Exhibit A by the Court.
Justice Osiagor, thereafter, adjourned the matter till July 4, 2025 for the continuation of trial.