Maphutha Oil & Gas MD Arraigned For Alleged N1.020 Billion Forex Fraud

The Kaduna Zonal Directorate of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC on Wednesday, November 5, 2025, arraigned one Captain Nuhu Haruna before Justice Darius Khobo of the Kaduna State High Court, sitting in Kaduna State for foreign exchange fraud.

He was arraigned on a two-count charge bordering on advance fee fraud and obtaining money under false pretence to the tune of N1,020,000,000 (One Billion Twenty Million Naira).

Count one of the charge reads: “That you, Nuhu Haruna (M) with NIN 45666600264 while being the Managing Director of Maphutha Oil & Gas Limited, sometime in December, 2023 at Kaduna within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, obtained the total sum of N782,300,000.00 (Seven Hundred and Eighty-Two Million, Three Hundred Thousand Naira only) from one Alhaji Sheriff Zailani Shanono, when you claimed to be capable of providing him with the equivalent in United States Dollars and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1(1)(b) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 1(3) of the same Act.”

Count two reads: “That you Nuhu Haruna (M) with NIN 45666600264 while being the Managing Director of Maphutha Oil & Gas Limited, sometime in January, 2024 at Kaduna within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, obtained the total sum of N125,000,000.00 (One Hundred and Twenty-Five Million naira only) from one Alhaji Sheriff Zailani Shanono, when you claimed to be capable of providing him with the equivalent in United States Dollars and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1(1)(b) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 1(3) of the same Act.”

He pleaded “not guilty” to the charges when they were read to him, following which the prosecution counsel, M.E. Eimonye urged the court for a trial date, while the defence counsel, M.T Mohammed informed the court of the defendant’s bail application, already before the court.

Justice Khobo, after listening to both counsels adjourned the case till November 19, 2025 for the hearing of the bail application and ordered that the defendant be remanded in a Correctional Centre.

Haruna was arrested following a petition from Shanono in which he alleged that he was introduced to the defendant sometime in December 2023, having claimed that he could provide him with a dollar equivalent of a sum of N1,020,000,000 (One Billion Twenty Million Naira, only), at two instalments of $600,000 and $400,000, each. Following the agreement, he alleged that he then provided the defendant with a foreign bank account into which he would pay the dollar sums and proceeded to transfer a total sum of N1,020,000,000 into accounts provided by the defendant.

The petitioner further claimed that shortly after his transfer of the sum, the defendant provided him with evidence of payment of the dollar equivalent he claimed to have made into his foreign bank account, only for him to discover that the payment evidence was not real as the money never dropped.