Kota Kinabalu: A 21-year-old pregnant woman has been sentenced to one year in jail for unlawfully allowing another individual to use her bank account.
Azira Awang Ahmad pleaded guilty before Sessions Court Judge Hurman Hussain to the charge against her on Thursday.
She gave control of her bank account to a man without legal authority between 4.19pm and 6.12pm on April 14 this year at CIMB Bank in Ranau.
The offence, under Section 424B of the Penal Code, carries a fine of between RM10,000 and RM100,000, or a jail term of between one and seven years, or both, upon conviction.
The court ordered Azira, who is also currently serving a five-year jail sentence for repeated drug use, to serve the one-year jail sentence from the date of her arrest on June 30 this year.
In mitigation, Azira, who was unrepresented, requested the sentence to run concurrently with her existing five-year term, saying that she is pregnant.
However, Deputy Public Prosecutor Muhammad Yousof Tahir Mahmood urged the court to impose a deterrent sentence involving both imprisonment and a fine, citing the increasing prevalence of such cases.
The court was told that at about 5.50am on April 14 this year, a complainant came across a Telegram message advertising the sale of auctioned gold for RM320. Interested in the offer, the complainant contacted the person behind the advertisement.
The complainant was then instructed to make several staged payments into the seller’s bank account, later identified as belonging to Azira, for the purchase of the auctioned gold.
Later that same day, between 4.19pm and 6.12pm, the complainant made three separate transfers totalling RM2,320 into Azira’s CIMB account.
Following a police investigation, Azira was arrested on June 30 at about 11.27am.
Investigations revealed that although the CIMB account was registered under Azira’s name, she had handed over control of it to a man identified as Mohamad Dahari, who remains untraceable.
Azira had unlawfully and without any valid reason allowed another person to use her bank account.
She also failed to lodge a police report after the ATM card linked to the account was no longer in her possession.
Further investigations showed that while Azira no longer had the ATM card, multiple transactions, including those made by the complainant were carried out using the account.
