Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Bank spotted fraudster’s error
A bungling Canterbury student tried to open a bank account with a fake passport and two utility bills showing the same reading.
Oghenenohwo Ojakovo carried out his attempted scam just nine days after receiving a conditional discharge for illegally using someone else’s credit cards.
The forgery ruse was spotted by an official at the TSB bank in the city, who noticed a photograph had been glued over the original picture.
Now, Nigerian Ojakovo, 22, has been jailed for a year after admitting the fraud in August 2015.
Canterbury Crown Court heard how he had gone into the bank asking to open an account in the name of Toby Stephens, giving an address in Sturry Road, Canterbury.
Prosecutor Alexia Zimbler told how the student had produced the doctored Portuguese passport and two examples of utility bills which contained identical gas readings.
Ojakovo, of St Peter’s Grove, Canterbury, admitted three fraud charges but claimed he did it at the request of a man called Benjamin Adams, who police were unable to trace.
His lawyer, John Connor, said the student had come to the UK for education and was frightened to return to Nigeria because of his sexuality.
He broke down sobbing after the judge jailed him for 12 months for the frauds and the breach of the conditional discharge.
Judge Rupert Lowe told him: “You came to the UK for educational purposes but you obtained a credit card and used it to enrich yourself in the country which was hosting you.
“You were given a conditional discharge by magistrates for 18 months – yet nine days later you armed yourself with a fake passport and two false British Gas utility bills to fraudulently open a bank account for the purposes of crime.”