ATM fraud: Bulgarians in court today for ruling

By Michael Odeng

KAMPALA - Kampala High Court is today expected to deliver its judgment in a high-profile case in which four jailed Bulgarians accused of ATM fraud are challenging their conviction and sentence.

The judgment is expected to be delivered by High Court judge Lameck Mukasa.

On December 19 last year, Buganda Road Court found Ivan Ganchev, Milen Katsarski, Adrian Dimitrov and Anton Ivanov guilty of forgery and illegal access of computer data of Stanbic Bank customers without authorization.

The convicts are said to have forged 36 cards and PIN numbers of customers of Stanbic Bank, Nateete branch.

The four Bulgarian nationals were accordingly sentenced to 20 years in jail. But they applied against the court’s decision through their lawyer, Charles Opwonya.

The Europeans, who were found to be dealers of Coffee Multi Group Limited in Naalya and residents of Naalya estates, reportedly committed the offence on August 30 last year.

Speaking to New Vision earlier this week, their lawyer insisted the sentence was passed without concrete evidence.

“Planting of evidence was very possible by both the police and the bank officials – that is why they should have not been convicted.

“There is no way fraud amounting to only sh7m can lead to a 20-year-imprisonment. The Magistrate was very biased,” Opwonya complained.

He pointed out that the contents of the ATM cards were empty and did not belong to the accused persons.

That aside, his clients still have another case of fraud to defend against.

But the trial of that other fraud case failed to take off at Nakawa Magistrate’s Court due to the absentia of a key prosecution witness, Frank Assimwe – a security head at Stanbic Bank – who was meant to testify in court.

This prompted the magistrate to fix August 20 as the day to have the Bulgarians produced in court for trial.