CRIET: he uses the phone of a deceased person for cybercrime and faces up to seven years in prison

Detained in preventive detention for several weeks, a man in his thirties appeared on Monday, February 16, 2026 before the Court for the Repression of Economic Offences and Terrorism.

He is charged with online fraud in a case with particularly troubling details.

According to the prosecution, the defendant would have taken advantage of a serious traffic accident that cost the life of a man to seize the victim’s mobile phone. From that device, he would have posed as the deceased in order to contact his relatives and then solicit money in his name.

The complaint was filed by the victim’s sister, who has been joined as a civil party in the case.
During the hearing, the plaintiff explained that the accused had also taken steps with the MTN operator to modify the access codes for his brother’s mobile money account, which would have allowed him to drain the funds held there.

Claiming moral and financial harm, his counsel sought the sum of one million CFA francs as damages.

The public prosecutor’s office, represented by the First Deputy Prosecutor before the CRIET, denounced the gravity and the inhumane nature of the alleged facts. Considering that the elements of the file establish online fraud, the special public prosecutor requested a seven-year prison term for the defendant, while asking the Court to reserve the civil claims.

The defense, for its part, pleaded acquittal on the basis of reasonable doubt, challenging their client’s direct involvement in all of the alleged facts. At the end of the proceedings, the Court postponed the verdict to April 2026, according to reports by Libre Express.