A man living in Ontario has been convicted of fraud after he tried to defraud the Town of Bridgewater out of nearly half a million dollars in a bizarre case involving the small town, a Nova Scotia construction company, a Big Five bank, Nigeria and China.
In a written decision released on Monday by the courts of Nova Scotia, Judge Paul Scovil said he found Ayoola Ajibade guilty of fraud beyond a reasonable doubt in the 2019 incident.
According to the document, the accounts payable clerk for the town of Bridgewater, N.S. received an email purporting to be from the divisional controller of Dexter Construction on Oct. 22, 2019.
“The clerk recognized the individual’s name and knew that the Town had numerous contracts with Dexter Construction,” the decision reads.
“The email requested the forms necessary to allow Dexter Construction to conduct business through Electronic Fund Transfers (EFT) allowing direct deposit to a Scotiabank account.”
The clerk sent the required forms to the same email address and they were filled in and returned to the town’s office.
The EFT form directed that funds owed to Dexter Construction were to be paid to a Scotiabank account, which turned out to be an account belonging to Ajibade in a branch in Brampton, Ont.
The court heard that witnesses from Dexter Construction…
