By Enyichukwu Enemanna
At least 22 Chinese nationals who pleaded guilty to committing cyber-related crimes have been sentenced to various prison terms by a court in Zambia.
The convicts were said to be targeting Zambians and other people from Singapore, Peru and the United Arab Emirates in their online scam.
The Magistrates Court in the capital, Lusaka on Friday sentenced them for terms ranging from seven to 11 years.
The court also fined them between $1,500 and $3,000 after they pleaded guilty to charges of computer-related misrepresentation, identity fraud and illegally operating a network or service on Wednesday.
A Cameroonian national among them was also sentenced and fined on the same charges.
They were part of a group of 77 people, the majority of them Zambians, arrested in April over what police described as a “sophisticated internet fraud syndicate.”
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Director-general of the drug enforcement commission, Nason Banda, said investigations began after authorities noticed a spike in the number of cyber-related fraud cases and many people complained about inexplicably losing money from their mobile phones or bank accounts.
Officers from the commission, police, the immigration department and the anti-terrorism unit in April conducted a raid on a Chinese-run business in an upmarket suburb of Lusaka, arresting the 77, including those sentenced on Friday.
Authorities recovered over 13,000 local and foreign mobile phone SIM cards, two firearms and 78 rounds of ammunition during the raid.
The business, named Golden Top Support Services, had employed “unsuspecting” Zambians aged between 20 and 25 to use the SIM cards to engage “in deceptive conversations with unsuspecting mobile users.
Some of the platforms through which the syndicate has scammed unsuspecting public include, WhatsApp, Telegram, chat rooms and others, using scripted dialogues, the drug enforcement commission boss said in April after the raid.
Zambian nationals were freed on bail.
