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13.04.2014 Africa

ORPHAN STEALS MILLIONS, FROM HIS SPONSORS, SENT TO JAIL FOR YEARS.

ORPHAN STEALS MILLIONS, FROM HIS SPONSORS, SENT TO JAIL FOR YEARS.
13.04.2014 LISTEN

Mike, who was being catered for by Mbale Senior secondary school in the eastern part of the country (Uganda), defrauded his sponsors millions of shillings; he later got arrested by police, and jailed for years.

From tens and hundreds of orphan students, Mike Twino, not his real name, was lucky to be selected by his school, to have free education and other benefits including accommodation, food and scholastic materials.

This greedy student, wanted to get rich quickly without any struggle and before completing his studies, thus, he ended up steeling from his sponsors.

Like else where in the world, schools and other institutions of learning, do reach agreements with Banks to receive and collect school fees of the students on their behalf.

Normally at the beginning of every term and every year, there are so many students who visit various branches of the bank to pay their fees.

Mike having developed mafia skills, it is alleged that he used to go to the bank, copy the current stamps used by the cashiers on tills that day, and then 'help' those students who never wanted to make long queues.

Another unreliable source has it that, it was an 'inside job', where by some staff members within the Bank, conspired with this student Mike.

It is urged that this stone hearted orphan, could be fed with vital information from the Bank, thus, he used these tips to defraud his fellow students and the school millions of shillings in cash.

Many students as if bewitched, entrusted their school fees with Mike, who In return gave them the already stamped bank slips from his office and not the Bank.

The school Bursar and the students, could not differentiate between the true Bank slip from the one stamped by Mike's office.

The school Bursar visited the Bank to check for the balance, unfortunately, there was no money on account, and the records at school showed that a huge number of students had settled their outstanding amounts.

The school was now faced with a problem of meeting its obligations, like paying its staff members and so many other costs.

Meetings after meetings where held, to ascertain what is really going on in the office of the school Bursar, eventually they decided to call some of the students to help them in the investigations.

All those students who were summoned, mentioned one person 'Mike' the orphan, who helped them to 'deposit' the money in the Bank.

The school started its internal investigations, and a case was reported to the nearby police station.

Few days later, Mike was rounded up at his premises unaware. The Police discovered hundreds and thousands of forged Bank slips, stamps and so many other materials.

He was charged in the court of law, pleaded guilty, and sentenced to 8 years in prison for theft, and defrauding the school millions of shillings.

To sum it up, many of Africa's Banks still lag behind in technology, save a hand full of them in South Africa, and may be in the north and west of the continent.

With just a simple installed program, fraud cases can be minimized or wiped out completely.

Any kind of transaction made on a particular account in the Bank, has to be easily and quickly detected, and an instant message be sent to the client for any eventuality and quick response.

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