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detention and community work for two Ethiopian brothers convicted of conspiracy
to scalp Rugby 2011 World Cup tickets were confirmed on appeal.
Nebiyou Tefera Demissie and Demissie
Tefera Asgedom were convicted of dishonesty as the New Zealand front for a
credit card fraud run out of South Africa getting high value Rugby World Cup
tickets intended to be onsold during the 2011 tournament. Relying on information provided by Ticketek
together with Immigration and Customs, police swooped on the brothers’ homes as
the World Cup got underway finding 931 tickets with a face value of over
$500,000 under Mr Demissie’s house. A
further 114 tickets with a face value of over $50,000 were intercepted by Customs
prior to delivery to Mr Asgedom’s home. Nine
tickets were found at his address.
Credit card companies fraud detection
systems identified some 1700 World Cup tickets worth more than $900,000 had
been purchased prior to the tournament through use of up to one hundred
compromised credit cards. Where
identified, tickets were cancelled.
There was evidence of Demissie and
Asgedom buying multiple tickets under several aliases each using over seven
compromised credit card numbers. Other
tickets linked to Demissie and Asgedom were purchased using a variety of
compromised credit cards traced to a common address in Johannesburg. Many were in the name of Demissie and Asgedom
themselves. Others were in the names of
members of their ethnic Ethiopian football team; other names being used to
allay suspicion attached to bulk buying of tickets.
At trial, the brothers said they were
innocent victims of a fraud, merely holding tickets for rugby supporters coming
in from overseas. Their phone records
identified contacts in South Africa. Acting on this information, Immigration denied
entry to a Mr Boku and a Mr Seed arriving from South Africa prior to the
tournament.
Dishonesty charges were laid against the
brothers in September 2011. The trial
took place in 2015. The Court of Appeal
said the brothers were not prejudiced by the delay. Much of this delay was caused by a series of
pre-trial applications seeking to have charges dismissed. The brothers also challenged evidence
regarding fraudulent use of credit cards saying each individual card holder
should have been called to give evidence about their card. The Court of Appeal said the Evidence Act
allows use of business records as fact of what the business document states. In this case, police used a spreadsheet combining
data from multiple credit card companies and from Ticketek to illustrate and
prove the links between tickets in the possession of the two brothers and fraudulent
purchases both by themselves and by others out of South Africa. The Court of Appeal ruled the spreadsheet was
acceptable evidence: it combined data produced automatically within corporate
computer systems and there was nothing to suggest the information was
unreliable.
The Court of Appeal ordered the brothers
finish their sentences of twelve months home detention and 200 hours community
work. Mr Demissie has also lost his taxi
licence on conviction for dishonesty.
Asgedom
& Demissie v. R – Court of Appeal (18.07.16)
16.112