Alberto Chang Rajii: Two mobile phones had access to victims accounts through mobile banking app, court told
Prosecutors accuse Alberto Chang Rajii of having defrauded a hotel out of €8,560 and the hotel’s owner out of €10,664 by using a cloned virtual copy of his bank card
The compilation of evidence against Alberto Chang Rajii continued before magistrate Gabriella Vella today, with the court being told that two mobile phones were registered to the victim's online banking system.
Prosecutors accuse Chang Rajii of having defrauded a hotel out of €8,560 and the hotel’s owner out of €10,664 by using a cloned virtual copy of his bank card.
Chang, who had been described as the ‘Chilean Bernie Madoff’ for his involvement in a Ponzi scheme in his home country in the early 2000s, was charged earlier this month in Malta with offences related to fraud and aggravated theft.
He is wanted in Chile to face criminal proceedings for tax evasion and multi-million dollar fraud through a Ponzi scheme, but a request for his extradition to Chile had been blocked by the Court of Criminal Appeal in 2018.
Today’s first witness, a reception manager at the Inhawi hostel in Balluta, told the court that she had been spoken to by the police on 13 March 2024, when they had arrested Chang Rajii, whom she also recognised in the courtroom.
“The police arrived, together with another man and asked about a €544 transaction made by a guest. They checked the card number and then asked to be taken to the man who had made the payment.” The witness said she took them to Chang Rajii, who confirmed to the officers that he had made the transaction and was then placed under arrest.
She exhibited documents showing the dates of Chang Raji’s stay. The defendant had resided at the hostel for just under one year, she said.
He had initially paid for his stay through a booking website but had later switched to using a virtual card which he had saved on his phone.
The hostel was unable to provide the court with CCTV footage of the defendant’s interactions there as the footage is deleted after four days, explained the witness.
A mortgage officer from HSBC Bank Malta plc also testified today, exhibiting the victim’s credit card statements for the period June 2022 to April 2024.
Asked about how the bank secured its clients’ accounts and cards, the witness replied that she was not equipped to answer that question as it was not something that her department dealt with.
She did tell the court, however, that the bank’s two-factor authentication system, 3D secure, was incorporated into the bank’s proprietary mobile app and did not use codes sent via SMS. Users could only authenticate themselves through the banking app.
There were two devices registered to use the mobile app with the victim's accounts, said the witness, an iPhone 12 that had been registered since 2022 and an iPhone 14 Pro Max which had been registered since August 2023.
Chang Rajii’s lawyer asked whether the witness could tell the court who had registered the two devices on the account.
The magistrate, too, asked whether the bank kept records of the IMEI numbers pertaining to the registered devices. The witness replied that the question would have to be asked to someone from the department concerned.
The sitting ended up being much shorter than planned, with the court unable to hear the remaining witnesses who had been scheduled to testify today. A representative of the Corner Hostel in Sliema did not turn up to testify, and neither did a police officer who was also meant to give evidence in court.
Technical problems with the setting up of a video conference meant that a third witness was also unable to testify today.
The court adjourned the sitting to July 18.
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