Cloned cards fraud trial in home stretch

Werner Menges

THE trial in the High Court of five men facing more than 1 000 charges of fraud and close to 500 counts of forgery stemming from the cloning of bank cards is approaching its last stages, nearly six years after the suspects were arrested.

The prosecution and defence closed their cases in the trial of the five accused before Judge Alfred Siboleka in the Windhoek High Court last week.

Only one of the accused, Sri Lankan citizen Pararasasingam Sarangan (29), testified in his own defence, with the other four accused remaining silent after the State closed its case on Thursday.

Sarangan claimed in his testimony that he was an innocent visitor to Namibia when he was arrested in Katutura in Windhoek during the early morning hours of 7 August 2007. A big wad of cash and cloned bank cards that the police claimed to have found in one of his trouser pockets were not his, but were planted there by a police officer, he claimed.

Sarangan, another Sri Lankan national, Anthony Suresh Kumar Stanis (36), British national Satheeskumar Thulasithas (35), Singaporean national Abdul Kader Jamal (48), and a Namibian citizen, Travoltha Mekaundapi Tjiuiju (32), are accused of having been part of an international fraud ring that allegedly cloned 474 bank credit and debit cards and then used the cards at automated teller machines throughout Namibia to withdraw large amounts of cash – alleged to total more than N$1,4 million – from the accounts of customers of British bank Barclays PLC.

The alleged fraud is claimed to have been committed between March and August 2007.

The 1 516 charges against them include 1 032 counts of fraud, alternatively theft, one charge of conspiracy to commit fraud, and 475 counts of forgery.

Another Sri Lankan national, Amirthalingam Pugalnanthy, would have been the first accused in the trial, but he disappeared in February 2010, while out on bail of N$200 000.

Sarangan told the court in his testimony that he knew Pugalnanthy. He claimed he travelled to Namibia on Pugalnanthy’s advice, since Pugalnanthy had told him that he would be able to help him to travel from Namibia to Canada, which was where Sarangan said he actually wanted to go.

Sarangan said he and Pugalnanthy stayed at the same guesthouse in Windhoek during the two and half weeks he was in Namibia before being arrested.

He testified that he and Pugalnanthy were coming from a nightclub in Katutura, and were on their way back to the guesthouse, when a big group of police officers suddenly pounced and arrested them.

Sarangan claimed he was manhandled by the police officers, and he later realised one officer had planted money and cloned cards in his trouser pocket.

“I know myself I was not having these kind of things in my pocket that night,” he claimed.

He and Pugalnanthy did not share a room at the guesthouse, he also said.

The court has heard that the police found a large quantity of cloned bank cards, lists of card numbers and possible PIN codes, and a card printer at the guesthouse.

The last evidence to be placed before the court by the prosecution before its case was closed was in the form of sworn statements by 24 British bank card holders who declared that they were not in Namibia on dates that their cards were used to make cash withdrawals in the country, and that they had also not given anyone permission to use their cards in Namibia.

After fighting last year to prevent the prosecution from using those statements as evidence without oral testimony from the cardholders themselves, defence lawyers Sisa Namandje and Brownell Uirab abandoned their objections last week.

The five accused are scheduled to return to court on 19 August, to hear on which date Judge Siboleka will be hearing closing arguments on the verdict to be delivered by him. Tjiuiju is the only one of the accused to be free on bail.