7 News Belize

Bulgarian ATM Fraudsters Plead Guilty
posted (May 20, 2016)
Ten days ago, we showed you the 2 Bulgarian ATM Scammers who are believed to have stolen thousands of dollars from Belize Bank ATM's from around Belize City. Initially, 25 year-old Halid Aptula and 28 year-old Georgi Petrov were each arraigned on 1 count of theft for only 500 dollars. Well today, when they were taken back to court for an adjournment, the police slapped on 17 additional counts of theft. And that's where the Bulgarians did a very surprising thing: they stood up and pleaded guilty to all charges brought against them.

As we told you they were caught on Saturday, May 7, by mere chance, after a vigilant internal auditor from Belize Bank spotted Halid Aptula in the act of scamming the Belize Bank ATM. Both men, it appears, had stolen pin numbers from persons outside of Belize. The investigation into the scam revealed that they had an interesting cyber theft scheme going on. They installed hidden cameras at ATM's outside of Belize, which captured PIN numbers of bank patrons. They then made fake credit cards, and they then came to Belize, where they used the stolen pin numbers and these fake cards to make mass withdrawals, all of which were stolen monies.

The Belize Bank told the police that their ATM's in the City had been targeted on several different occasions in January, March, and May of this year. Police investigations revealed that these men were in the country on all the dates that these fraudulent transactions happened.

Police found 111 fake credit cards in the men's hotel room along with 250 blank plastic cards. Initial court reports said that they found $2750 in cash. Well, police updated the court today that what they actually found was $21,750.

Today they were charged with 17 additional counts of theft of money, in increments of $200 to $500. On Friday May 6, and Saturday May 7, both men made a total of 18 different withdrawals of $500 or less. That's what they pleaded guilty to before Senior Magistrate Frazer today when she arraigned them. The bank is accusing Halid Aptula of stealing a total of $6,800, and they're accusing Georgi Petrov of stealing $8,000.

After both men pleaded guilty to each count, Senior Magistrate Frazer adjourned the case to consider what sentence they should get. She had to consider handing them a fine, or a prison sentence, and the attorneys for both men interceded asked the court to consider a fine because they had not wasted the court's time by pleading guilty.

When the Senior Magistrate returned 2 hours later, she informed both men that she was reserving judgment until June 8. So, both men had to return to Prison on remand while they await the Magistrate's ruling. When the hearing finished we spoke with one of their attorney's outside about the outcome:

Christelle Wilson, Attorney for Georgi Petrov
"Today we had additional charges levied against our clients, bringing the sum to about $8,000 from my client Georgi and $6,000 plus for Mr. Halid. So what we did, we made submissions to the court to the effect that since the law prescribes, the summary jurisdiction offences act provides that if somebody is convicted of theft, they can be charged with a fine as opposed to imprisonment. Si our submissions were along that line that they've pled guilty, they are aiding the court in saving the court time, instead of going through a very lengthy trial and putting the bank to prove them - they have accepted liability even though they might not agree with some of the facts, they accepted liability and they are now willing to just pay a fine and go home. But as you all know today that was not the end result in the courtroom this afternoon, because the judge is reserving her decision for the 8th June."

Reporter
"Were you all surprised by the prosecution indicating that they would actually move to seized all the money and other things found?"

Christelle Wilson, Attorney for Georgi Petrov
"It caught me very much off guard, because the last time we appeared in court which was some 11 days ago, they made no indication that they were going to do any type of seizing order and they waited to hear our submissions, they waited until the judge was about to deliver her ruling to come and say 'oh just so you know I want to give you notice that we are going to be putting in an application to cease their monies and their goods under the FIU act.' I think it was ambushed to us and I am grateful that the magistrate is giving us time to review the submissions that they have made, the application and come prepared to argue that application. Because they really took me off guard when they brought that."

As you heard, the charges that both men pleaded guilty to are only from May 6 and May 7. But, as we told you, the Bank became aware of the scheme since January, and police investigation show that every time the bank was targeted, both men were in the country. But, at this time, they aren't facing any charges on any of those other occasions when the bank was targeted. Our information was that the police suspected them of stealing as much as a few hundred thousand dollars from Belize's banking system, so given that they are only facing charges for less than 20 thousand dollars, did they get off easy? That's what we asked one of their attorneys:

Daniel Ortiz
"Were they treated with leniency, because they were not prosecuted for those instances where the bank is reasonably certain that your clients were in the country and those instances happened as well?"

Christelle Wilson, Attorney for Georgi Petrov
"Well remember in these types of criminal cases, the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these two persons did in fact steal monies in that timeline that they have given. So far their virtual complainant which is the bank has only produced those two dates as you rightly mentioned. So I would say that they've been treated with leniency, but they can only answer to what the prosecution and the bank is putting forth. So maybe it's that the bank has not tied up that loose end yet to say with definity who is responsible for those monies that went missing in January, February, March or whatever the date was. But they can only answer to the two dates that were put in front of them."

Daniel Ortiz
"Experienced ATM Belize Bank user tell us that you can only withdraw $500.00 at a time for each transaction. The fact that your clients have pleaded guilty to 18 attempts would suggest well-develop scheme. These are scammers who know exactly what they are doing."

Christelle Wilson, Attorney for Georgi Petrov
"Well I wouldn't say that these are scammers who know exactly what they are doing. What my clients have always maintained was that based on instructions they withdrew monies from the ATM. They are still not under the impression that it was in any way theft, because they used legitimate cards to pull the monies from the ATM. It is the bank now that is saying these cards were illegitimate cards and the accounts were not for them to pull from. So it's really for the prosecution and the bank to prove otherwise. Today, they accepted liability for going into the bank and withdrawing money. They are not saying that they did anything illegal, they are just saying yes we took monies and if you are going to fine us guilty for taking monies - we will even give you back the monies. We took these monies, we will give you back, but that's as far as they are saying and as much as I could tell the media at this point."

As we told you, the case continues on June 8, and we'll be there to tell you what the judge decides.

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