The Senior Magistrate Court, Kano and Grade 1 Area Court Nyanya, Abuja has convicted seven offenders of breaking SIM Card registration laws.
The offenders, Bako Joseph Boy, Umar Kabiru Abdullahi, Lawal Sani, Shamsuddin Aliyu, George Eze, Ayuba Ishak, and Kabiru Ali were convicted for various SIM card related offences.
Specifically, the first convict Bako Joseph Boy was charged with the sale of SIM cards outside a controlled environment, while the other six were arraigned on the charge of the sale of fraudulently wp-signup.phped SIM cards.
The offences were contrary to section 517 of the Criminal Code Act; Section 65 (1) of the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA) 2003 and Section 65 (2) of the NCC Act, 2003 and punishable under the same Act.
The suspects pleaded guilty to that charges brought against them and were subsequently sentenced to two months imprisonment with an option to pay a fine of N15,000 and six months imprisonment or the option of fine in the sum of N20,000.
The arrest of the suspects followed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Nigerian Communications Commission, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and the Department of State Services to strengthen inter-agency collaboration towards curbing the criminal act of wp-signup.phping and selling of pre-wp-signup.phped SIM cards in the country.
The use of pre-wp-signup.phped SIM cards gives cover for unwholesome activities like kidnapping, call masking, threat to lives, bullying, armed robbery, identity theft financial crimes and SIM swap fraud, among others.
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