A week after his arrest and imprisonment, Adekeye appeared before British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Arne Silverman, a six-year veteran of the province's highest trial bench. Adekeye was described as a "sinister" figure of uncertain citizenship on the run from 97 charges of illegal computer hacking that carried a penalty of almost half-a-millennium in prison.

Canadian prosecutors said that, according to US Homeland Security, Adekeye slipped in and out of the US surreptitiously—and they could match up the dates of the offenses with dates he had unlawfully entered the country over a two-year period.

They made it sound like the crime of the century; in fact, throughout the specified time, Adekeye was living in America on a valid visa. And the heinous crime was accessing Cisco's internal systems on several occasions with a Cisco employee's permission.

As he stood in court for his first appearance, Adekeye couldn't believe what he heard—his citizenship was disparaged, his achievements derided. Prosecutors portrayed him not as a successful computer executive and innovator but rather as a Nigerian scofflaw who was a serious flight risk with a checkered, fugitive's past.

[...] The extradition documentation was mostly a pack of "innuendo, half truths, and complete falsehoods," as a judge would later find, but it was impossible for Adekeye to counter without obtaining documentation from Europe. He was denied bail and would remain in custody for 28 days while his lawyers mustered supporting material to refute the charges presented to the court. He was finally released only under strict bail conditions that forced him to surrender his passport and remain in Vancouver unless given permission to travel elsewhere in Canada.