Mr. Lawrence Henry Eromosele, the 25-year old
footballer and fraudster that impersonated a former
member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Hamisu
Shira is to spend 12 months in jail. The sentence
was handed to him on March 23, 2009 by Justice J.E.
Oyefeso of the Lagos High Court Ikeja, after the
convict pleaded guilty to the 7- count charge
bordering on impersonation, forgery and uttering
preferred against him by the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission, EFCC.
He was first arraigned on the 12th of this month,
making his trial one of the fastest in recent time.
The convict, who claimed to have played professional
soccer in Ghana, Mali and Cote D’Ivoire, was
arrested at the Murtala Mohammed Airport last
February by the operatives of the Commission while
trying to board an Emirate Airline flight to Dubai
using fake International Passport bearing the names
of Alhaji. Hamisu Shira.
The Edo state born footballer was inconsistent in
his statements to EFCC. In one breadth he said that
he met a football agent by name John while playing
for ASEC Mimosas Football Club, Ivory Coast, who
collected CFA300 from him with a promise to help
secure a business visa to Dubai, and that the said
John, asked him to claim Hon. Hamisu Shira for easy
passage to Dubai. In another, he claimed that he met
one Christy at a cybercafé in Abuja who gave him the
login details of the victim’s e-mail address.
But investigators discovered that the fraudster
went to the cybercafé and disguised as an attendant
in the café. In the process he was attending to the
customers that came to the cybercafé to browse.
Unfortunately, the secretary to the former Rep went
there to send e-mail messages to her boss’ business
partner in Dubai and along the line she had problem
sending the mails. She requested for the convict’s
assistance, thinking that he was a staff of the
cybercafé. At that point, the convict hacked the
lawmaker’s e-mail.
Femi Babafemi spokesman of the EFCC recalls in a
statement that he used the e-mail address to send
letters to the victim’s business partner in Dubai
requesting for a Dubai visa, purchase of Emirate
flight ticket and booking of hotel. But his dubious
scheme was exposed when he sent his passport
photograph to the partner in Dubai. The partner
apparently could not reconcile the face on the
passport with the name of the Rep. He promptly
alerted the Rep who in turn reported the case to
EFCC. A trap was set for him. The ticket was sent to
the fraudster but as he attempted to travel with it,
he was nabbed.
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