Olalekan Adewoye, the chief executive officer of Sunsteel Industries Limited, has been arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for alleged financial fraud.
The businessman was arraigned on Thursday alongside two of his companies – SUNLEK INVESTMENTS LIMITED and SUNSTEEL INDUSTRIES LIMITED – before Justice Mojisola Dada at the Lagos State High Court, Ikeja.
The trio are facing a two-count charge of stealing and obtaining property by false pretence amounting to $680,622.65.
One of the charges reads: “That you, Olalekan Adewoye, Sunlek Investments Limited and Sunsteel Industries Limited, sometime between 2013 and 2014 in Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, with a dishonest intent, stole and converted, for your own use, the aggregate sum of $680,622.65 (Six Hundred and Eighty Thousand, Six Hundred and Twenty-two Dollars Sixty-five Cents), property of Hexagon Im-und Export GmbH & Co KG, a German Company, being the value of construction materials supplied to you, and you thereby committed an offence, to wit, obtaining property by false pretence, contrary to and punishable under Section 1(1), (2) and (3) of the Advance Fee Fraud and other Fraud Related Offences Act No. 14 of 2006.”
Adewoye pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Prosecution counsel Abdulhamid L. Tukur requested a trial date and asked the court to remand the defendant, while defence counsel Olusegun O. Jolaawo, SAN, presented a pending bail application, stressing that Adewoye had complied with previous EFCC bail conditions.
Justice Dada allowed the defendant to remain on EFCC administrative bail but ordered him to deposit his passport and the documents of two landed properties with the court.
The trial was adjourned to June 3 and 19, 2025.
