Mozambique: Two defendants sentenced to 11, 10 years for embezzlement of €1.8M

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Two defendants sentenced to 11, 10 years for embezzlement of €1.8M

8:19 CAT | 21 Oct 2020

Picture: CoM

The Maputo Judicial Court on Tuesday sentenced two defendants to 11 years and 10 years in prison each for their involvement in the embezzlement of just over 155 million meticais (€1.8 million) from the Single Treasury Account [CEDSIF].

The judges unanimously considered that Gama Nhampele and Liliana Ferreira committed the crimes of computer theft of money and valuables, forgery of authentic documents, association to delinquency and money laundering.

The court found that Gama Nhampele, a computer technician at the Financial System Development Center (Cedsif), an institution under the Ministry of Economy and Finance, entered the computer system of the institution and the State Financial Administration System (Sistafe) and fraudulently got the Bank of Mozambique to authorise payments from the Treasury Single Account (CUT) between 2016 and 2020.

The withdrawal money exceeded just over 155 million meticais (€1.8 million).

The operation had the help of Liliana Ferreira, a person with no ties to the state but who agreed to open a “front” company and bank accounts used to drain the funds from the loot.

Besides Liliana Ferreira, the scheme involved three other people, who made their companies and bank accounts available for fraudulent transactions.

The three people are fugitives and hang over them international arrest warrants.

In addition to the prison sentence, the court sentenced Gama Nhampele to pay damages of 93.5 million meticais (€1.08 million) to the state for damages caused by the scam and Liliana Ferreira to pay damages of 60.2 million meticais (€701,000).

The judge in the case, Ivandra Uamusse, considered the two defendants economic criminals whose action is equal to or worse than the perpetrators of ordinary crimes, such as murder, because of the damage it causes to society.

“It is this kind of [economic] crimes that causes the lack of medicine in hospitals and food in families, and in time of Covid-19 one sees the negative impact of this kind of behaviour,” she said.

The two defendants denied their participation in the fraud as well as all the crimes charged to them.

Liliana Ferreira’s lawyer told the journalists, at the end of the sentence, that he will appeal the decision because the conviction of the court does not correspond to the facts that occurred or were demonstrated at trial.

“We have no other option but to contest this decision on appeal,” Mirko Paulo said.

Source: Lusa