Six people who have failed to appear in the Windhoek High Court on charges linked to the alleged operation of a fraudulent international cryptocurrency scheme from Namibia have been traced to China.
State advocate Erick Moyo informed judge Philanda Christiaan in the Windhoek High Court yesterday that according to the police they have requested Interpol to establish the current location of six accused who were absent when they were supposed to appear in the court four weeks ago.
Moyo said the information made available to the state is that the six missing accused have been traced to China.
They are Chinese citizens Guo Linjie, Li Zirian, Shi Zijun, Chen Wuyu, Wu Nengjun and Wu Weiyang.
Two other accused in the matter, Zheng Haifeng, who is a citizen of the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu, and Ghim Hwee Chris Ang, who is a citizen of Singapore, also failed to appear in court for pretrial hearings in April and yesterday.
Christiaan issued warrants for the arrest of the absent accused on 22 April.
She cancelled the bail of the missing accused yesterday and ordered that their bail deposits are forfeited to the state.
The bail deposits range from N$30 000 to N$100 000 for each of the absent accused, and amount to N$490 000 in total.
The remaining accused who appeared before Christiaan yesterday – Chinese citizens Fan Jia, Lin Shu Lin and Chen You Yi, Cuban national Carlos Baptista Valdes and Namibians Tango Muulyao, Toivo Herman and Mclanda Domingo – have to return to court for a third pretrial hearing on 22 July.
They are jointly charged with 65 counts, consisting of 57 charges of trafficking in persons, six charges of fraud, alternatively theft by false pretences, a count of racketeering and a count of money laundering.
Fan is also charged with a count of withholding an identity document or travel document of a person to facilitate or promote an offence of trafficking in persons, while Baptista is charged with entering Namibia without an unexpired passport with a valid visa as well.
The state is alleging that between December 2022 and October 2023 the accused recruited unemployed Namibians through the close corporation Raylon Investments and trained them to lure people to make investments in cryptocurrency accounts controlled by them.
The recruited employees are alleged to have been subjected to exploitation in the form of forced labour and economic and criminal exploitation.
The state is also alleging that the recruited employees were made to create fake social media accounts and profiles, posing as American and European women to build relationships with victims who were lured to make investments in cryptocurrency accounts controlled by the accused.
Targeted victims of the alleged scam paid amounts of US$111 000 (then about N$2 million), 74 000 euros (then about N$1.5 million), US$36 000 (about N$570 000), 10 000 Canadian dollars, 4 969 British pounds, US$4 000 and 2 000 British pounds into cryptocurrency accounts controlled by the accused, who then stole the invested money, the state is alleging.
The equivalent of a total amount of about N$4.4 million was allegedly stolen by the accused.
The accused were arrested in October 2023. They were granted bail on various dates in February, April, May and September 2024.
