Two men cleared of ATM card skimming charges after appeal

Two Bulgarian men have been cleared of participating in organised crime to carry out ATM card skimming, by a court of appeal.

Kitanchev Blagoy Zhorov and Polihronov Spas Georgiev had been charged participating in organised crime in 2017, with Zhorov alone being accused of possessing tools used to carry out card-skimming attacks on ATMs.

In November 2019 the two men were jailed, Zhorov for 6 years and Georgiev for 5, with the court ordering them to pay over €3000 in reparations. The men appealed.

Mr. Justice Giovanni Grixti, presiding the court of Criminal Appeal, noted that the Maltese police had been notified by Europol that the pair had plans to head to Sicily to carry out skimming attacks there, before returning to Malta.

The judge observed that the crime of conspiracy had three requirements: an agreement between two or more persons, an intention to commit a crime and an agreement on the method.

The court had been told that tools used for ATM skimming had been found in Blagoy’s luggage, whilst in Spas’ possession a hard drive containing hours of footage of an ATM’s keypad was recovered. After reviewing the evidence, the judge said he had no doubt that the accused had been in Malta for the purpose of carrying out ATM fraud.

But, said the judge, this was not enough for guilt to be found on a charge of criminal conspiracy, which he said had to have been planned and agreed on in Malta. “This is a jurisdictional issue where the law punishes conspiracies agreed in Malta and not away from our shores. That which the law attempts to prevent are criminal conspiracies made in Malta. Now if the conspiracy took place abroad and the conspirators arrive in Malta to carry out that which they had agreed upon, Article 48A cannot be stretched in such a way that their arrival in Malta can be seen as a form of novation, as happens in the civil law sphere.”

The court, however said it had no doubt that the metal tools belonged to the accused, despite their claims to have found them in a suitcase borrowed from a friend in Bulgaria.

For these reasons, the court declared the men not guilty of the first two charges, relating to criminal conspiracy and membership in an organised crime group and declared only Blagoy guilty of the third charge, that of possessing the illicit tools, jailing him for 2 years and condemning him to pay €432.70 in costs. The tools exhibited were confiscated by the court.

Laywers Shazoo Ghaznavi, Charlon Gouder and Ramona Attard were defence counsel.