Couple, accomplice jailed 18 months for stealing N5m

A Yaba Chief Magistrate Court on Tuesday convicted and sentenced a couple, Warris Matti, 27, and Anifat Matti, 25, and one Adeyemi Olaiya, 32, to 18 months in prison and 200 hours of community service for stealing.

Warris, a sales representative and Olaiya, 32, a supervisor at Hans and Rene, were said to have conspired to steal a total of N5m from their employer.

The presiding magistrate, Mrs A.O. Salawu, who handed down the verdict to the trio after the conclusion of the trials and the facts presented before the court, held that their sentence should begin immediately.

Salawu, who gave no option of fine, ordered that the first and second convicts be sentenced to 18 months in prison, while she sentenced the third convict (Anifat Matti 25), to 200 hours of community service.

The convicts were first arraigned on March 26, 2024, and they pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.

Earlier, the prosecutor, Inspector Godwin Oriabure, told the court that the trio and some others still at large committed the offences on October 26, 2023, at No 58 Clover Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.

Oriabure told the court that Warris and Olaiya, who worked as a sales representative and supervisor respectively at Hans and Rene, conspired to steal a total of N5m from their employer.

He explained that Warris fraudulently got customers to pay directly into his wife’s Opay account which he linked to Hans and Rene.