7 News Belize

Jail For Bulgarian Bank Card Fraudsters
posted (June 10, 2016)
For the past month, the 2 Bulgarian ATM Scammers, 28 year-old Halid Aptula, and 25 year-old Georgi Petrov, have been at the Belize Central Prison. Well, Senior Magistrate Sharon Frazer has ruled that they must spend 12 more months in Jail after they admitted that they scammed a total of $14,800 dollars from Belize Bank ATM's all around Belize City.

3 weeks ago, they pleaded guilty to 18 counts each of illegally withdrawing money from the ATM's, conducting a textbook case of bank card fraud. They got the numbers from ATM's outside Belize, and then made fake credit cards, came to Belize, and used the stolen banking information to make mass withdrawals using those fake bank cards.

On May 20, during their second arraignment before Senior Magistrate Frazer, both men did a surprising thing and pleaded guilty to separately stealing $8,000 and $6,800 each. The bank's surveillance systems at the City ATM branches captured them taking out $500 dollars or less, eighteen different times each between Friday, May 6 and Saturday May 7.

Eventually, Halid Aptula was caught in the act and Police launched a quick operation which led them to detain Georgi Petrov, and they confiscated, 111 fake credit cards, 250 additional blank plastic cards, and $21,750 in cash.

After 3 weeks of considering the case, Senior Magistrate Frazer returned to court today and explained that a prison sentence, not a fine, is appropriate because if they hadn't been caught on May 7, they'd most likely still be out and stealing from the bank. But, they did save the court time by pleading guilty, so she decided that they would 3 months in prison for the first 4 theft convictions, which will run consecutively. That adds up to 12 months in jail, and for the other 14 counts, they would serve 3 months for each, all of which would run concurrently. That means that they will only spend 1 year in jail.

Right after the court hearing, we spoke with one of their attorneys about the sentence that the Senior Magistrate handed them. Here's what she told us:

Christelle Wilson, Attorney for Georgi Petrov
"As attorneys we have to be practical when we are advising our clients. We know that certain information were put before the courts and we thought it was in their better interest to plead guilty which satisfies the overriding of the court to offer a lesser sentence, a more lenient sentence which we have come to the realization is what our clients got. When we look at the law, the maximum sentence could have been anywhere to 3 or more years or a fine exceeding what we had thought would have come out of this. For them to get 3 months to run concurrently and 3 months consecutively which amounts to 1 year - we find that to be very lenient and we are very thankful to the court for giving us that sentence today. What you also saw in court today was the application for a confiscation order being made by the prosecution which was what we were trying to knock down on the grounds that they were found guilty of $8,000 and $6,000 respectively. So it doesn't satisfy the threshold of the prosecution to bring an application under the money laundering and prevention of terrorism act for a serious offence for them to confiscate the monies that were found at the premises of the two individuals."

So, what about the other times that they are suspected to have stolen from the bank? Well, at this time, it appears that they cannot be criminally charged for those cases.

Now, the Belize Bank has determined that the credit card fraud scheme started bank in January of this year, and it continued in March and May. Now, they have admitted to stealing almost fifteen thousand dollars in just 2 days in May, so how much more did they get away with through all those months? Our information is that the total figure was in the hundreds of thousands.

And indeed, sources tell us that the cops attempted to lodge something between 80 and 90 new counts of theft against Halid Aptula. That's an estimated $35,000 or more that Aptula, the suspected mastermind, would have been additionally accused of stealing. But, the window of opportunity has been slammed shut on those new charges, since both men have already pleaded guilty to the initial 18 counts. The law does not allow for them to be additionally charged since the criminal case against them is finished.

Christelle Wilson discussed that crucial mis-step by the cops which may have allowed these men to get off easy:

Daniel Ortiz
"Our information is that the police attempted to lodge additional charges. We are told some 79-87 additional counts which would have taken that threshold of monies supposedly above forty plus thousand dollars."

Christelle Wilson, Attorney for Georgi Petrov
"Those charges would have had to been brought at the initial time the first were brought. Remember when those charges were read, our clients plead guilty. So they have already been convicted of those charges that came on the 7th and 8th in May. What the rule of law is that in accordance with autrefois convict, they cannot be tried again for the same crime for the same similar facts of theft. So I don't know where you heard that they were bringing additional charges, but they can't bring additional charges based on these same similar facts, because that would be putting our clients in a double jeopardy situation which would be going against their constitutional rights. So I don't that think that's going to happen. I don't see how they would try to do that and if they try to do that, then you'd be having to make some very serious constitutional arguments against that."

Daniel Ortiz
"If in deed those charges were brought to the court and the idea was that maybe we've been out of time, doesn't that make today's sentence leniency particularly more relevant given that had the police done as they ought to have been doing, your clients could be facing more charges."

Christelle Wilson, Attorney for Georgi Petrov
"As I said I can't speak to those additional charges, because this is the first time that I'm being made aware of that. But I will concede that the court was very lenient today and that is what we as attorneys pray for when we come to court. We know what the outcome could be for our clients and so when we get a lesser sentence we are appreciative and whether or not those additional charges were brought as you heard clearly today the judge mentioned that because they plead guilty, because they speed up the process for the court, it could very be that even if additional charges were brought, this same sentence would have been delivered."

When the case returns to court next week, we'll tell you whether or not the court allows the state to confiscate the cash that the cops found in their apartment.

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