By Vir B. Lumicao
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| District Court in Wanchai |
A Filipino tourist who tried to exchange US$50,000 worth of fake
travelers checks at a money exchange in Central was sentenced to two and a half
years in jail after he was found guilty of using a false instrument.
The sentencing of Noel Rambuyon, 42, an aircon technician in
Qatar
The judge rejected Rambuyon’s claim that he went to the
Travelex Worldwide Money shop in Central on Feb 6 last year only to inquire if they
would change his Thomas Cook travelers checks.
Chan accepted the evidence given by two Travelex staff that
Rambuyon had entered their shop and said he wanted to cash his travelers checks
which were all in US$1,000 denomination.
Lim Ming-yee, a sales consultant at the shop, said she had
undergone training to detect fake bank instruments, and knew right away that
what Rambuyon had presented to her colleague Lily Wong was spurious because Thomas Cook did not issue
US$1,000 checks.
The staff asked Rambuyon to wait, giving the excuse
that it took time to verify the checks’ codes. Unknown to him, they had already reported the
case to the police and were just waiting for them to arrive.
Rambuyon was then arrested and charged with using false
instruments.
In his statement to the police, he said the checks were
given to him by his sister in Mindanao who said
they were bequeathed to him by their father who died two years earlier.
During the trial, Rambuyon’s lawyer had insisted the
defendant did not know the checks were fake and had gone to the Travelex shop only
to inquire if they changed Thomas Cook travelers checks.
The court was told there were no Travelex branches in the Philippines so Rambuyon had to go to Hong Kong to make the inquiry
Thomas Cook sold its financial services division, including
its travelers check business, to Travelex in November 2000.
But Judge Chan, in his verdict, doubted the defense claim.
“In my view, the fact that there was no Travelex in the Philippines does not mean the defendant had to
travel to Hong Kong to make an enquiry. There
are phones and the internet to make an inquiry,” he said.
Chan also noted the facts that the travelers checks that
Rambuyon presented to the bank staff were unsigned; that there are no travelers
checks denominated in US$1,000; and that he presented 50 pieces of the
documents, for a total value of US$50,000, to the staff.
The judge said there was no doubt the defendant was asking
to encash the checks, not knowing that the shop would not make the exchange for
that amount of cash to an individual on a single day.
In mitigation, the defense lawyer said Rambuyon was, at the
time of his arrest, working as an aircon
technician in Qatar
The lawyer also said that there was no real loss to Travelex
as the checks were fake.
“That’s a fact, not a mitigation,” the judge said.
In imposing the jail term of two and a half years
imprisonment, the judge said there was no discount because Rambuyon was
convicted after trial.
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