A Nigerian man who was charged with hiding and concealing criminal income totaling more than $265,000 stood trial Monday at the Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People’s Court.
Aderiye Alexander Dotun, 34, was caught by local police at a Bank of China branch on Luban Road on June 24 last year, according to an online report.
Prosecutors said Dotun opened two accounts, at the Bank of China and the China Construction Bank, with fake passports in the name of Lemon Sanford and Imperial Digital, last spring.
Between April 28 and June 15, he allegedly withdrew more than US$248,600 from one account and US$17,260 from the other.
Prosecutors said that money was defrauded from two foreign companies, which had been deceived to transfer their international trade payments into Dotun’s accounts.
The court heard the two companies, Jeffery Court Inc in the United States and Karyan Luggage in the United Arab Emirates, were supposed to transfer money to two Chinese companies in Hebei Province and Fujian Province.
But the e-mail containing the receiving company’s bank account was hacked, and the two companies were directed to make the transfer into Dotun’s accounts, the court heard.
Dotun claimed he didn’t know the money was criminal income and said he withdrew it for his friend, a Nigerian named Lawrence Ayuba, who gave him two fake passports and told him to open the accounts.
He admitted withdrawing money from the BOC account but denied taking money out of the CCB account.
Prosecutors said the four fake passports seized from Dotun all had his photos.
Dotun said they were not him but Ayuba, who resembled him. There was no evidence that Ayuba exists.
The court didn’t announce a verdict on Monday.
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