A 37-year-old man, Benjamin Bright, was on Tuesday sentenced to a three-year jail term for duping about 3,000 Nigerians  of about N4.9m.

Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye of a Lagos State High Court in Ikeja pronounced the prison sentence after Bright had admitted committing the crime.

The convict was charged to court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commissions following the receipt of about 50 different petitions from members of the public against him.

While reviewing the facts of the case, the prosecutor, Mr. Emmanuel Jackson, said Bright perpetrated the crime through a mouth-watering but sham investment scheme he had purportedly launched and advertised in a magazine sometime in 2008.

Jackson, who described Bright as a skillful and competent young man, said the convict steadily scammed several Nigerians, including aged pensioners, for about three years before he was eventually apprehended.

Bright was later arraigned on 21 counts bordering on fraud and issuance of dud cheque.

The offence was said to contravene sections 383 (1) and (9) of the Criminal Code, Laws of Lagos State 2003.

He had initially pleaded not guilty, but later owned up after spending over two years in custody awaiting trial.

Justice Ipaye said the three years prison term would commence from Tuesday.