A plan to save a bit of money by getting through the border using fake covid-19 results instead of paying P850 for the required test has cost an expatriate his freedom in Botswana.
Iraklis Roilos from Greece has landed in jail to await his turn to face the full wrath of the law after he was found guilty of presenting fake Covid-19 results to an immigration officer at Ramatlabama border post.
Lobatse Chief Magistrate, Gofaone Morweng this week ruled that Roilos (37) , a consultant engineer at the Ministry of transport and communications, was guilty of presenting fake results to a Government official purporting it to be an authentic document.
Facts of the case are that Roilos produced his passport and the fake result to an immigration officer at the port of entry but when the officer scanned the results the QR code did not reveal his name.
According to court records, the immigration officer then contacted Diagnofirm Medical laboratories to verify the results.
Diagnofirm confirmed the result were not authentic.
“Some of the abnormal features of the particular documents were that they (results) did not have a watermark and the case number was also incorrect,” the immigration official told the court.
After satisfying herself that the results were fake the immigration officer handed Roilos to the Police.
During interrogation, it is the state’s case that Roilos told the police that it was in fact his landlord who organised the service for him from Diagnofirm and that their (Diagnofirm) agents tested him at his residence.
But when the Police further investigated the matter at Diagnofirm, they were told that Roilos documents lacked features of their results slips.
“The said manager identified the particular results as lacking authenticity on the basis that they were a clone of the accused’s results which he had lawfully obtained on 22nd April 2021, further that the case number was not registered in their system, time of registration and time of receipt matched his previous results which he had obtained in the date already mentioned and that the QR code had been manipulated to the extent that when scanned the information was backed up from his dropbox,” reads court record.
In his defence Roilos argued that the Diagnofirm agents who tested him at his home told him that they had a server problem and gave him his results through dropbox.
In the end, the Magistrate in his ruling said, “I find that the accused persons’ version of events was improbable in that the results which this court found to be false were a clone of his results dated 22 April 2021. He used dropbox to fraudulently divert scan detection to the said dropbox.”
The Magistrate continued to state that, “His evidence fell short of establishing the identification of individuals he referred to as agents. Furthermore, if indeed he was really scammed it was upon him to provide the police with the number which he said he contacted when he sought services of testing from the unknown scammers. This could have probably paved way for investigation and thereby eliminating the possibilities of his involvement.”