It was a neatly executed scam…but the long arm of the law caught with the two fraudulent sisters, who used the plight of a sick man bedridden for two years to get money from a good Samaritan. They are to spend 10 years in jail if unable to pay a fine of N100,000. 00 each slammed on them.
An Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) statement did not state why the fines were not up to the amount the donor was defrauded of.
But in Kaduna, Justice Muhammad Tukur of State High Court, Kaduna convicted and sentenced the duo of Maryam Muhammad Jallo and Rukaiya Muhammad Jallo to ten years imprisonment for offences that border on criminal breach of trust.
The pair who are blood sisters were prosecuted on an amended one count charge by the Kaduna Zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
The charge reads, “that you Maryam Jallo and Rukaiya Jallo on the 30th day of March, 2019 in Kaduna within the judicial division of this Honourable Court, while being entrusted with the sum of One Million Seven Hundred Thousand Naira ( N1,700,000) only by one Alhaji Badamasi Shanono and Adio Bukar Hashia for medical treatment of one Usman Umar dishonestly misappropriated same and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 293 of the Kaduna State Penal Code Law, 2017 and punishable under Section 294 of the Same Law”.
The defendants pleaded ‘guilty’ to the amended charge preferred against them. Consequently, Justice Tukur convicted and sentenced them to ten years imprisonment with an option of N 100,000 fine (One Hundred Thousand Naira).
One Alhaji Badamasi Shanono alleged in a petition that, in 2019 JAMAL HEALTH FOUNDATION owned by the convicts used its social media platform in soliciting for donations and contributions from donors for the medical expenses of one Usman Umar who had been bedridden for over two years haven suffered partial paralysis.
Shanon claimed he donated one million to the foundation, while seven hundred thousand was chipped in by a woman.
He further alleged that Jamal Foundation refused to hand over the funds to the patient but converted it to personal use.