Police officer guilty of over N$700 000 theft

A former police officer accused of multiple charges including theft and money laundering says he thought the bank had made a mistake when it deposited N$720 000 into his account.However, he couldn't resist using the money, he admitted. Ricardo Nestor argued during his trial that he thought the bank had accidentally deposited the money into his account and he could not resist using it.Nestor withdrew the money within a month and invested parts of it in crypto, leaving only about N$300 remaining.Following the guilty verdict on theft and money laundering in the Windhoek High Court last Thursday, he remains in custody and will appear again in the High Court in Windhoek on 23 September.Some charges dismissedNestor initially faced ten charges following his arrest in 2019.He was acquitted on six of the charges during his trial and found not guilty on two of the remaining four charges on Thursday.While he was found not guilty of fraud, judge Philanda Christiaan found him guilty on the alternative charge of theft. He was also found guilty of money laundering but not guilty of charges of forgery and issuance.The State alleged that in October 2019, Nestor hacked into the computer of a director from a Walvis Bay construction company and sent a fraudulent invoice to a company that was supposed to pay for a construction project.On the fraudulent invoice, the bank details were allegedly changed to those of Nestor.The director of the involved company said he clicked on a suspicious email, and an IT specialist discovered a programme on his computer that allowed remote access to his device.Authorities only traced Nestor after the bank was approached to determine who owned the account with the altered bank details on the invoice.Nestor's devices were seized and sent for forensic analysis, but nothing was found linking him to the cybercrime or the fraudulent invoice.Judgment In her judgment, Christiaan pointed out that the State relied largely on circumstantial evidence and said there was insufficient evidence to convict Nestor of forgery or fraud.“His involvement only began after the money was paid.”Christiaan also noted in her ruling that one of the requirements for someone to be convicted of fraud is that they must have made a misrepresentation to obtain money. She found that the State could not prove that Nestor had made any misrepresentations.Christiaan also emphasised in her ruling that the burden of proof rests on the State to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt, and she found that they had not succeeded in this regard concerning the fraud and forgery charges.According to Christiaan, the court is reasonably convinced that Nestor’s version of events could be true– one of the legal principles against which criminal cases are measured.

Police officer guilty of over N$700 000 theft

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Namibian Sun 2026-03-06

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Police officer guilty of over N$700 000 theft

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Namibian Sun 2026-03-06

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