Six MTN staff given nine years in jail for Shs3b fraud

The High Court in Kampala on Tuesday sentenced six MTN staff to nine years in prison after they were found guilty of illegally gaining access to the mobile money system and wired cash amounting to more than Shs3 billion to various money agent lines that they shared thereafter.
The six were convicted on Monday by court presided over by Justice Paul Mugamba. On Monday, Justice Mugamba also found three other MTN staff innocent of similar charges after prosecution failed to make a case against them and freed them accordingly.

Those sentenced included; Edrisa Sserunkuma, Joseph Magombe, Daniel Ssegujja, Henry Edgar Matovu, Irene Kauma and Peter Ayebare.
Those freed and had spent close to two years on remand at Luzira prison are Mr Jerom Oketcho Jackchar, Mr Joshua Kulaba and Ms Mary Nassejje.
The nine were facing charges ranging from embezzlement, theft, conspiracy to commit a felony, unauthorised access and electronic fraud.

The Judge also singled out the incident of Sserunkuma where he gave a flash disk to Ayebare that he used to insert into the MTN computers thereby gaining access to mobile money system and wired cash to mobile money agent lines that they later shared.
Prosecution led by Marion Caroline Acio told court that the convicts and others still at large between January 23 and 25, 2013, at MTN Towers on plot 77 Yusuf Lule Road in Kampala, carried out electronic fraud by transferring more than Shs3 billion from MTN dispute account to MTN mobile money agent lines.

Further, prosecution alleged that Magombe, Ayebare, Mr Ssegujja, Matovu and Sserunkuma, between 23 and 25 January 2013, unlawfully possessed a computer component which is designed primarily to overcome security measures for the protection of data with regard to password and access code of MTN computer systems.