Court Grants N50m Bail to Alleged MTN Hackers

A court has granted N50m bail to alleged hackers accused of defrauding MTN. Learn more about the case and the bail conditions.

Timothy Oluwabukola and Anthony Odemerho, who stand accused of hacking into MTN Nigeria Communication Plc’s system to steal airtime and data worth N1.9 billion, have been granted bail by Justice Akintayo Aluko of the Federal High Court in Lagos on condition that they each pay a sum of N50 million.

Oluwabukola and Odemerho have been accused by the Special Fraud Unit of Nigeria Police of engaging in unlawful activities such as conspiracy, unauthorized access to MTN’s web-based Application Programming Interface (API), and conversion that occurred between January and April this year. The purportedly illegal acts took place within Lagos and Edo States.

The attorneys of the defendants presented individual bail requests, which Justice Aluko approved with a condition that each defendant must present two guarantors.

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A civil servant at grade level 14 from either Lagos state or federal service should be one of the guarantors while the other should possess real estate within the court’s jurisdiction and provide proof of ownership as well as an affidavit stating their financial capacity.

Until their bail conditions are met, the judge directed that the defendants must stay in custody under the Nigerian Correctional Services (NCoS).

According to Prosecutor Justine Enang, the accused, together with accomplices who are yet to be apprehended, plotted and succeeded in accessing MTN’s API.

This enabled them obtain pertinent information which was used for fleecing the telecom firm of a sum total N1.9 billion.

Sections of both the 2015 Cybercrime (Prohibition Prevention etc.) Act as modified in 2024 and also the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act dated back at year 2022 were broken through these actions committed by defendants mentioned above.

The next course of action in the proceedings will require that the defendants attend court to address charges and engage in additional legal procedures based on presented evidence.