Man arrested in SIM-swap, cheque counterfeit scam

Police have arrested a man suspected to be part of a gang that forges bank cheques, signatures and SIM cards to defraud people.Claude Uwintwari, in his late 20s, was arrested last weekend in a Banque Populaire branch in Nyamirambo, Kigali City, where he had withdrawn Rwf 12 million from an account of area local businesswoman, Esperance (second name withheld).On the fateful day, Uwintwari, who is said to be a former football coach of Kiyovu Football Club youth side, went to the bank with a forged cheque. However, the teller called the telephone number of the said account holder to confirm whether she had authorized the cheque.According to police investigations, the gang had made a SIM-swap of Esperance’s line and when the teller called her number, it was answered by another woman, who claimed to be Esperance, giving the go-ahead to release the money. The money was then transferred to Uwintwari’s account in the same bank.It was Uwintwari’s unlucky day, however, after Esperance appeared at the bank at the moment and denied authorizing the cheque and Uwintwari was intercepted trying to withdraw the money from his account.The suspect, however, declined having knowledge that the cheque was forged. “I was given the cheque by a colleague; he told me that he had a bank loan in bank populaire and that the bank would take the money if it was deposited on his account. He wanted me to help him using my account,” Uwintwari told reporters. Beata Habyarimana, head of compliance department at Banque Populaire, explained that Uwintwari presented a genuine cheque leaf but he had changed the name, serial and account numbers.“This was a huge amount of money which cannot be taken in cash; but it was transferred to his account as we followed up to see if it’s true that the account holder authorized the release of the money, which turned out not to be true and the culprit was arrested in the process,” Habyarimana said.The New Times could not by press time independently verify claims that the SIM-swap was done by an MTN employee, who could have been part of the racket.But Paul Mugemangabo, MTN legal officer, explained that the operator will intervene to find out if any of their employees is involved.“If the SIM holder claims that swapping the card had some negative impact…we will do all we can to find out those responsible,” he vowed.“We are going to follow up and see the agent who swapped that SIM, if he or she followed all the procedures. There is a form supposed to be filled by the client and documents supposed to be provided before the agent makes a SIM-swap”.According to him, agents have the authority to make SIM-swaps, but this is done after seeing that all requirements are met to verify if the person is the real owner of the card.“But even if the SIM-swap was done with ill intentions, it shouldn’t lead to defrauding the bank, because they also have procedures they should follow, like verifying if the cheque and the signature are real,” Mugemangabo added. Last year, another businessman, Theophile Minega, was defrauded of 27 Nokia mobile handsets worth over Rwf 1.8 million after unknown people swapped his SIM-card and sent an SMS to a girl who was managing one of his phone shops instructing her to hand over the phones to the people he supposedly sent to the shop.Last September, one Edisson Mugisha, a self-styled ‘Managing Transporter’ of the ghost company, Busingye Construction Limited registered as based in Gisenyi, also issued a forged BCR cheque of Rwf 19 million to Sonatube and took 784 iron bars before he issued another fake cheque of Rwf 39 million to Kobil Petroleum and went away with 40,000 litres of diesel.

National

Man arrested in SIM-swap, cheque counterfeit scam