Cyber Fraud: Naira Marley’s Trial Resumes As EFCC Begins Analysis Of His Phone

The Federal High Court, Lagos has resumed the trial of music artiste, Azeez Fashola, popularly known as Naira Marley, on 11 charges which centers on conspiracy, fraud and possession of counterfeit cards.

The court had a second prosecution witness, Anosike Augustine, a mobile forensic expert with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The witness began his testimony in 2020 just before the COVID-19 lockdown.

Anosike explained how roughly 2,410 short messages were analysed from the iPhone of Naira Marley. He further said that several credit card numbers were taken out of the defendant’s iPhone.

While the analysis was going on, Anosike stated that 977 Short Message Service (SMS) and 1,433 chat messages, were found. He also said that there were seven pending status update messages.

The witness read out a series of credit card numbers and messages forwarded from Naira Marley’s iPhone on various dates and times, with OTP codes sent.

He listed some of the recipients of the messages to be someone named Yadd and another person, Raze.

After he read all out, the prosecutor told the court that all the analyzed messages were kept in a Compact Disc (CD) but the prosecution had only printed out some parts that were material to its case.

A projector was eventually agreed on, to be used to play the CD in the court, so as to prove the cyber fraud case and discharge the burden put on the prosecution and against the defendant.

Justice Nicholas Oweibo, thereafter, adjourned the case till October 27, for the CD to be played.