6 sureties jailed …as 4 Chinese criminal suspects skip court

SIX sureties have been sentenced to five months imprisonment and ordered to pay K20, 000 each failure to which they will serve an additional one month making a total of six months jail term for failing to take four Chinese suspects to court.

The four Chinese who are charged for being in possession of 55 counterfeit ATM cards and 10 point of sale machines are allegedly on the run after the Lusaka Magistrate’s Court granted them K15, 000 cash bail each at the earlier court sitting.

When the matter came up for return of bench warrant before Magistrate Silvia Munyinya yesterday, Drug Enforcement Commission prosecutor Lewis Kandele said the warrant was not executed.

The court had issued a bench warrant against the eight officers in the public service who signed bail for the accused as sureties after they failed to take the Chinese to court.

Six of the sureties were sentenced to five months imprisonment and ordered to pay K20, 000 each failure to which they would serve an additional one month making a total of six months jail term, while two other sureties failed to appear before court.

In the previous sitting, the Magistrate granted the accused cash bail of K15, 000 each and two working sureties in public service bound in the sum of K20, 000 each.

The four Chinese are alleged to have been using the said counterfeit ATM cards to steal money from various ATM machines.

In this case, Fang Hua ping, 44, businessman, Yu Fei, 36, businessman, Zhuang Wei, 35, contractor, and Luo Tao, an interior designer, all from Kamwala South are facing six counts of unauthorised access to intercept data and being in possession of property suspected to be proceeds of crime.

Among the six counts, Fei and Wei in Lusaka had in their possession 20 ATM cards with intentions to unlawfully utilize them.

In another count, Ping and Wei on dates unknown but between January 1, 2015 and April 31, 2017 in Lusaka possessed K40, 000 in a Barclays Bank account, property reasonably suspected to be proceeds of crime.

The matter was adjourned to March 11, 2019 for return of the bench warrant.