Several credit card numbers were extracted from Naira Marley’s phone – EFCC witness tells court

Augustine Anosike, a forensic expert with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Tuesday gave his testimony in the case involving Afeez Fashola, popularly known as ‘Naira Marley’  before Justice Nicholas Oweibo of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos.

Anosike, told the judge how several credit card numbers were extracted while analysing the content of a total of 2,410 messages found on the defendant’s mobile phone.

Naira Marley was arraigned by the EFCC on May 20, 2019, on 11 counts bordering on conspiracy, possession of counterfeit credit cards, and fraud to which he pleaded not guilty.

At the resumed sitting, Anosike, who continued his examination in chief, told the court that Exhibit F was a conclusion of his analysis of the defendant’s iPhone X version 10.6, model A 1901.

He also gave the IMEL number of the iPhone and the SIM ICCID number in open court.

Led in evidence by the prosecution counsel, Rotimi Oyedepo, Anosike described the Apple iPhone as a sophisticated device capable of storing a large volume of information.

“It is the SIM card that basically identifies users of applications like WhatsApp,” he told the court. “ It, therefore, means that as long as a number has already been registered with a particular WhatsApp account, it matters less if such a user leaves the country.

“There are cases where a WhatsApp application can still be used even though the registered SIM card is not inserted in the phone. The chatting app used in the analysed device was WhatsApp.”

When asked to brief the court on his findings while analysing the phone, Anosike said a total of 977 Short Message Service (SMS) and 1,433 chat messages were discovered.

“We also discovered seven pending status update messages. On November 26, 2018, there was an outgoing message registered about 3:32pm, with a credit card number. This message was sent to one Yadd.

“On December 11, 2018, there was an incoming message to the defendant’s device which read ‘Your One Time Passcode (OTP) to verify your mobile number is 248716,” he added.

According to the witness, another message was sent at 5:06pm by one Hiya Bayi to a recipient with the name Raze on the same day. The content of the message, he told the court, was another credit card number.

Anosike, while giving further evidence, told the court that there was an incoming message at 10:16pm on December 12, 2018, which read “tried and it was unsuccessful; sure you are not rinsing it out then giving it to me to try.’

During the proceedings, he also revealed several credit card numbers sent on different dates and times, as well as OTP codes sent found on the defendant’s phone.

The prosecution counsel, thereafter, told the court that all the analysed texts were fully contained in a Compact Disc (CD).

He, however, told the court that the prosecution had only printed out those portions it considered material to its case.

Consequently, he asked both the court and the defence counsel, Olalekan Ojo, if the prosecution could bring a projector to play the CD in the open court or not.

While Justice Oweibo granted his prayer, Ojo did not raise any objection to the request by the prosecution.

The judge later adjourned the case till Wednesday for the prosecution to play the CD on a projector.