7 News Belize

A Tale Of Hacking
posted (March 22, 2017)

So, from skepticism in Inez Casanova's testimony, the Senate appeared almost disbelieving of the answers that Erwin Robinson was providing them. He's one of the Immigration Officers who went on suspension back in September 2013 for the Won Hong Kim Passport, which was a fraudulent production from start to finish. 

They all faced a tribunal from the Public Service Commission. At the end he was restored to duty as a public officer, but he lost his job at Immigration because it was determined that he, or someone using his profile in the Department's passport system, took a picture of a picture of Won Hong Kim. This South Korean fugitive couldn't have been in Belize to take a passport picture because he was in lock down in a Taiwanese detention center at the time. So, did Robinson do it? Well, when the Senate put that one to him, he categorically, denied, and he shared his surprising theory that the passport machine's user computer was hacked, and that he was being set up as the fall guy. Here's that part of today's hearing:

Hon. Mark Lizarraga - Business Senator
"So in all of this Mr. Robinson, you are saying that all of this wrong information, all of these errors identified by the auditor general, you're not sure how they happened?"

Erwin Robinson - Implicated in Citizen Kim Scandal
"Basically it's going from the facts in the report but it's not going from whatever happened, that is all I can say because why would I risk my job for no reason. Like I have no ties to no one in that sense like how would I know this man, a man that is in jail, how is that possible?"

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"It's not one person, its many people."

Erwin Robinson
"I just feel like I'm being framed-"

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"Were you at any time paid or asked to circumvent any of the systems in the passport office?"

Erwin Robinson
"No sir."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"Did you receive money at any time from anybody to do them a special favour?"

Erwin Robinson
"No sir."

Hon. Aldo Salazar - Chairman, Senate Select Committee
"You've had a long time to think about this, this cost you your job, your reputation, you as an insider there how do you think this could happen?"

Erwin Robinson
"I'm telling you the truth is I understand how it looks and I understand-"

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"I know how it looks because I am looking at it but I'm asking you."

Erwin Robinson
"To my knowledge I know that I was being framed from Mr. Hulse explained the situation to me and I tried to find out just as much as him and I was trying to assist them in any way possible but it started in a way that they weren't trying to help me because-"

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"Have you been able to come up with any ideas?"

Erwin Robinson
"To the best of my ability I do believe it could have been a photo switch at some point after the data was done."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay - PUP Senator
"You told us somebody appeared before you and you took a picture."

Erwin Robinson
"Yes sir."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay
"We know now that the passport came out with different, agree?"

Erwin Robinson
"Yes sir."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay
"You are just suggesting now a photo switch?"

Erwin Robinson
"Yes sir."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay
"You are telling us that as far as your role is concerned once you take that picture and you move on to the next stage, you can't go back and correct or do anything?"

Erwin Robinson
"Yes sir, I personally cannot."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay
"So if a photo switch took place, it had to have happened when you completed the data and sent it on."

Erwin Robinson
"Yes sir."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay
"I'm not asking you to point fingers I'm asking you could an administrator go in and do the photo switch and then do the printing?"

Erwin Robinson
"What I'm explaining is from my knowledge a computer is a computer and everybody knows a computer can be compromised at any time. There are people with the level of intelligence that can - I'm saying that is the only way I would see how it could happen, I'm not saying that's what happened but that is the only thing I could believe because it's not me. Anyone that knows how to do that can get in."

Hon. Dr. Carla Barnett - UDP Senator
"And there would be a record of it, that is the beauty of those kind of systems you see because they record everybody, even if they change your password and do something under the new password, when you open up and have to change, when your password is changed people would know that somebody did something under the temporary password and there is no such thing in the system."

Erwin Robinson
"Ma'am they have people at higher level than we know, there are people higher than we know in computers, we know, there are hackers, we know that. A hackers can do things bigger than that, we know that."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"You completed the data entry at 12:54. At 1:01 Sharon Flowers approved it, so at that stage she would have look at the application and the picture on the screen, she said it was the same, everything match, she approves it. Then 3 minutes later Mark Tench prints it."

Erwin Robinson
"From the approving stage, it goes to the printing stage."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"That picture swap that you are talking about in the system would have had to be done in 3 minutes; you understand what I'm saying."

Erwin Robinson
"Yes sir."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"Sharon Flowers approved it as 1:01. Mark Tench prints it at 1:04. So that picture swap would have take place in there because when you saw it or when you confirmed it."

Erwin Robinson
"At what time was the data entry completed?"

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"Data entry was completed at 12:53. A few minutes later, 8 minutes later Sharon Flowers approved it okay."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"How much minutes then, 8 minutes later?"

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"8 minutes later Sharon Flowers approved it, that time the picture was still the same."

Erwin Robinson
"I would not know because I would not be on the system at that time, during that time."

Hon. Mark Lizarraga
"Well if she did her work, she did her job but 8 minutes later she approved it. 3 minutes later-"

Hon. Eamon Courtenay
"One question because this still remains a mystery. If she was involved in something irregular, you are saying that she could have seen a picture of the application but either the hacker, the devil or god would have changed the picture on the system and she still approves it?"

Erwin Robinson
"She wouldn't know because she wouldn't be out there-"

Hon. Eamon Courtenay
"She wouldn't have the application form to verify?"

Erwin Robinson
"She would have the application form on the system."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"So she would have been able to see the difference in the picture."

Erwin Robinson
"Yeah I guess. Well that's the approving stage."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay
"Right that's what I'm saying and that's what you are trying to establish. At that stage she's either involved in something irregular or it is as you have seen it and then just before printing divine intervention."

Hon. Aldo Salazar
"The Russians (laugh).

Also in tomorrow's  newscast, we'll show you more from Erwin Robinson's testimony in which the Senate kept challenging him on the fact that pictures of pictures were taken and placed into the system using his account. You'll hear him explain why this is mere co-incidence.

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