Ukrainian fraud mom back in court
Ukrainian woman convicted of fraud for faking her child’s kidnapping and duping her elderly lover is back in court.
|||Cape Town - A Ukrainian woman who was convicted of fraud for faking her child’s kidnapping to collect “ransom” money from her friends, is back in court for failing to refund an elderly man who she dubed out of R4million.
Kateryna Karpovska, who had started a romantic relationship with her victim, and had tconned him into investing R4 million with the bank, which she had kept for herself.
Two years ago, Kateryna Karpovska was sentenced by magistrate Amrith Chabilall to eight years in prison, suspended on condition that she repaid the money to her elderly victim within seven months.
She failed to repay anything, and appeared in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crime Court on Wednesday, before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg.
At the time, Chabilall said that Karpovska had qualified for the minimum sentence of 15 years for a first-time offender, for fraud involving R500 000 or more. All that had saved her was that her children were with her in South Africa and to jail her would leave them in a foreign country without support.
At Wednesday’s proceedings, it transpired that both the commercial crime court, as well as the Western Cape High Court, had refused her permission to appeal her sentence.
She then petitioned the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA).
It transpired on Wednesday that the SCA had granted her permission to appeal – not against her sentence – but against the refusal of the high court and the commercial court to give her permission to appeal her sentence.
In Wednesday’s proceedings, prosecutor Jannie Knipe told the court that the SCA had still to schedule a date when defence advocate Anthony Berenito would give reasons why the two courts were wrong in refusing Karpovska permission to appeal.
Only if the SCA ruled in her favour, would Karpovska be permitted to appeal her sentence, Knipe told the court.
Karpovska had been in a romantic relationship with her elderly victim.
Passing sentence two years ago, Chabilall said the method she used to cheat her victim was a disgrace.
Karpovska was appointed by the Ukrainian Joint-Stock Commercial Bank, better known as the Imexbank, as the chief representative officer (CRO) with the SA Reserve Bank.
The bank closed its South African representative office in March 2008, but Karpovska failed to inform the SARB of this, and fraudulently continued as the Imexbank’s CRO with the SARB.
In the R4 mln fraud case, she falsely informed her victim not only that she was Imexbank’s CRO, but also its chief wealth manager.
The case continues on December 14.
ANA