Ex-policeman Ricardo Nestor sentenced to five years for N$700 000 theft and money laundering

A former police officer convicted of stealing more than N$700 000 that was paid into his bank account has been sentenced to an effective prison term of five years.

Judge Philanda Christiaan sentenced Ricardo Nestor (35) in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.

She sentenced him to seven years’ imprisonment, of which two years are suspended for a period of five years, on a charge of theft, and to a jail term of five years on a count of money laundering.

The sentence on the charge of money laundering is to be served concurrently with the sentence on the theft charge, the judge ordered.

Nestor faced 10 charges during his trial before Christiaan, but was found guilty on only two of the charges in August.

In respect of the charges on which he was convicted, the state alleged that Nestor defrauded a company by informing it in October 2019 that his personal bank account number was the account number of a construction firm that had done work for the company.

The company ended up paying N$720 000 into Nestor’s bank account, under the impression that it was paying the construction firm.

Christiaan found that it was not proven that Nestor sent an email message in which his bank account details were provided to the company, but also found that Nestor stole the N$720 000 when he used the money after it had landed in his account.

She further found that Nestor committed the crime of money laundering by transferring N$200 000 to a cryptocurrency trading account after the N$720 000 had been paid into his account.

Nestor, who told the court he was a police officer for nearly 10 years before resigning from the force, testified during his trial that he saw the payment of N$720 000 into his bank account at the end of October 2019 as “a blessing”.

He also said he thought someone had made a mistake by paying the money into his account, and that he then used the funds to pay some of his debts and solve some problems he was experiencing at the time.

Nestor could not explain how his bank account details appeared on an invoice that was sent to the company before it made the payment into his account.

While testifying, Nestor conceded that he stole the money when he used it.

He did not testify in mitigation of sentence after he was convicted.

By choosing not to testify after he was found guilty, Nestor did not express remorse under oath, and he also did not inform the court what happened to the money that he transferred to a cryptocurrency trading account, Christiaan said during the sentencing.

Nestor was convicted of serious offences, she remarked.

Given the gravity of the crimes, the court should emphasise deterrence as an aim with Nestor’s sentence, and a prison term is inevitable, Christiaan said.

She added that it is concerning that cybercrime, committed through the use of computers, appears to be on the increase in Namibia.

Nestor was arrested in January 2020, and has been held in custody since then.

Legal aid lawyer Albert Titus represented him during the trial.

State advocate Basson Lilungwe prosecuted.