Director of Public Prosecutions v Camara, Georges, Donka and Anania

[2014] VCC 504

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA Revised
Not Restricted
Suitable for Publication

AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR 13-02487

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

FLORINEL CAMARA
CHRISTIAN GEORGES
ANTAL CYPRIAN DONKA
VALENTIN DIMITROU ANANIA

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JUDGE:	HER HONOUR JUDGE GAYNOR
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:
DATE OF SENTENCE:	11 April 2014
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v Camara, Georges, Donka & Anania
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2014] VCC 504

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:
Catchwords:
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited:
Sentence:

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the Director of Public Prosecutions	Mr P. Pickering
For the Accused Camara	Mr J. Yianoulatos
For the Accused Georges	Mr C. Farrington
For the Accused Donka	Mr W. Barker
For the Accused Anania	Mr A. Lewin

HER HONOUR: 

1Florinel Camara, Christian Georges, Antal Cyprian Donka and Valentin Dimitrou Anania, you have each pleaded guilty to the following charges:  Florinel Camara and Christian Georges, you have each pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiracy to defraud; and you, Antal Donka and Valentin Anania, have each pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to defraud.

2The facts underlying your offending are as follows.  In 2012 Victoria Police received information regarding illegal transactions committed on ATMs machines in Europe by Romanian nations and then, in January 2013, began Operation Whitebait in response to allegations that similar transactions were taking place in Melbourne targeting Australian banks and branches.  The illegal transactions involved both card skimming and cash trapping.

3Card skimming involves the use of devices, attached to the outside of ATMs, placed surreptitiously over the normal card reader on the ATMs, which then record the details of a customer's card. At the same time the customer's personal identification number being recorded by a small camera.  The information is then used by offenders to create new cards for use by them or others. 

4Cash trapping involves the use of a prepaid credit card, which is used to withdraw a small amount of money from an ATM and, while the cash is being dispensed, the offender inserts a fork-like device into the cash dispenser, which is left to entrap cash from a second transaction.  A second card is then inserted and cash, usually to the daily limit withdrawn.  But because the fork is still jammed in the dispenser, the cash collects on the fork and the ATM software records an error that the cash has not been dispensed, reverses the transaction and reimburses that card.  The card is then retrieved by the offender from the ATM.  There is no debit on that card.  The offender takes the cash and can then reuse the card for that amount.

5Commonly offenders in these sorts of frauds work in groups, so one offender uses the cards for the transaction and manipulates the fork to jam the cash dispenser.  A second offender obscures any bank security CCTV, for example, by using an umbrella to block it, while others act as lookouts and drivers. 

6You, Valentin Anania, and you, Antal Donka, are Romanian nationals who came to Australia on 17 October 2012 on Hungarian passports and then applied for student visas.  Ultimately those visas were cancelled because of your non-attendance at educational institutions here and each of you was listed as an unlawful non-citizen in the second half of 2013.  The two of you lived at Gordon Avenue, South Altona, which, at the time of your arrest, was also being shared by your, Florinel Camara, a dual Australian and Romanian citizen.  You, Christian Georges, are a dual Romanian-Australian citizen who lived at another address in Altona Meadows with your family.  You, Anania and Donka obtained Victorian drivers' licences in December 2012 and applied for student visas. 

7Charge 1 on the indictment, conspiracy to defraud between 3 December 2012 and 12 March 2013 involved the four of your engaging in card skimming and cash trapping between those dates.  In that time, 248 ATMs were targeted and the total amount of cash taken was $184,920.

8According to the prosecution outline, the typical method involved you, Camara, using the cards to make transactions and/or insert the fork, while you, Georges, would stand and watch and obscure the TV.  You, Georges, were sometimes seen to remove cash from the ATM and you would also use an umbrella or similar object to obscure or move the bank's CCTV cameras installed for security so that withdraws could not be recorded.  You, Donka, and/or you, Anania, would act as lookouts or drivers for the other offenders and would both be seen in CCTV footage near the affected ATM at the time of the offences.

9The prosecution case is that you, Camara, were present on all occasions of the cash trapping, the evidence indicating that the other three co-accused were involved on a number of occasions but not all.  You, Donka, had a mobile telephone.  CCR records of your number show your phone was often used in the vicinity of ATMs at or near the time of the use of the fork on that ATM by you, Camara, and/or you, Georges.  It is the prosecution case, Donka, that whilst it is not conceded your role in this conspiracy is only to the extent of activity captured on CCTV, it cannot be established what the extent of your role was in each overt act save for the matters in the summary and where admissions by you were made.

10It does not concede that you were unaware of the extent of the conspiracy but cannot establish the extent of your knowledge of overt acts of the others.  Further, the prosecution conceded that the location of your mobile phone near the various ATM sites did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that you were involved in that part of the overt act that was going on, nor could it be said that you were personally present.  Two other offenders described by virtue of their clothing were also identified in the CCTV footage in addition to the four of you and police have also identified various persons who purchased the prepaid cards, usually from Australia Post outlets, onto which illegally obtained credit and other card information taken from the ATMs was then encrypted. 

11You, Anania, and you, Camara, are also alleged to have been involved in card skimming or preparation for card skimming, the method used being the installation of a duck-bill-style card skimming device over the ATM card reader, which would collect the information from customers' cards when they were making legitimate transactions. 

12As part of Operation Whitebait, surveillance was conducted on the two of you attending numerous ATMs on 27 February 2013.  In particular CCTV footage from one particular bank showed you, Anania, fitting a duck-bill skimming device over the ATM card reader.  Further, between 23 February and 6 March 2013, cards were used by you, Donka, and you, Anania, which had the details of overseas bank customers, in an attempt to withdraw cash, those cards having been stripped of their original data - for example, Telstra Big Pond music cards, which were then encrypted with data from the other accounts.

13The banks whose information was illegally used for the transactions included HSBC, UK; Barclays Bank, UK; NatWest Bank, UK; Ulster Bank, Ireland; and AIB Bank, Ireland.  The cards for these offences were located at your unit, Anania and Donka, and one was found in your wallet, Camara, at the time of the execution of the warrant and your arrest on 12 March 2013.  The three of you were arrested at the unit premises on that date. 

14At that residence police found a duck-bill card skimming device and fascia plate card reader, two plates used to attach the pin-hole cameras to the ATM, clothes seen to have been worn by you during the commission of the offences, Australia Post visa prepaid cards used during the offending, gift cards stripped of their data and used for card skimming, a partly constructed fork used for cash trapping, a magnetic strip card rewriter, soldering equipment, a toolbox containing card-skimming equipment, three bundles of gift cards containing script cards or bank account details not the property of you three, mobile telephones used by the three of you at the time of the commission of some of the offences and cards used by you during the commission of the offences.

15

On the same day, police executed a warrant at your home, Georges, at

2 Wiltshire Court, Altona Meadows, where, in the boot of your car, they located clothing worn at the time of the commission of the offences by both you and Camara, together with a card with Camara's fingerprints on it in the same bag as a fork used for cash strapping.  A black umbrella used by you, Georges, to obscure or move safety cameras near the ATMs was also located.  You, Anania, Donka and Camara made "no comment" answers in an interview with police and you, Georges, denied all the allegations.  All of you were released on bail.

16On 4 August 2013, you, Camara, and you, Georges, were seen by police not involved in Operation Whitebait acting suspiciously at the Bendigo Bank ATM in Broadford, at which time 20 transactions were conducted by the two of you using information skimmed from 14 separate accounts; which transactions took place between 1.42 and 1.51 pm involving a total sum of $6,920.  On seeing the police, the two of you escaped, running along High Street into a car park and you, Georges, were located hiding in long grass nearby, police finding in your possession the cash and a key, which was used to open your car. 

17There, Camara's wallet containing identity documents and a gift card containing data from a skimmed card, together with your wallet and identity documents, were located.  Clothing used by you, Georges, during the card skimming on previous days and pairs of latex gloves, together with $18,390 cash was found in the centre console.  At the ATM, a Myer gift card was found taped over the security camera with a Band-Aid and a receipt for an uncompleted withdrawal of $800 was protruding from the machine.

18You, Georges, were arrested and participated in a record of interview but denied all knowledge of the card skimming and were remanded in custody.  On 7 August 2013, you, Camara, were arrested at Sunshine Police Station and, in a record of interview, denied all knowledge of the card skimming and were remanded in custody also.  Subsequent investigation by police revealed that a card-skimming device had been fitted to a CBA bank ATM in Elwood on 2 August 2013, which was used to record the account information of account co-holders from the CBA and other bank customers using that ATM on that day.  Card encrypted with the stolen data from that ANZ accounts were used to make unauthorised transactions at four locations, totalling $5,090, between 3 and 4 August 2013.

19

Cards using the stolen data from CBA accounts were used to make unauthorised transactions at 13 locations, totalling $20,510, between 3 and 5 August 2013 from CBA accounts.  You, Camara, and you, Georges, were recorded on CCTV footage on 3 August 2013 using the NAB ATM at Victoria Street, Richmond and the HSBC ATM in Swan Street, Richmond, which were two of the locations where information skimmed from the CBA ATM on

2 August 2013 was used for fraudulent transactions. 

20The maximum penalty for conspiracy to defraud is 15 years' imprisonment.  You, Camara, and you, Georges, have been remanded in custody since being apprehended in August 2013.  You, Donka, and you, Anania, were remanded in custody after failing to appear or report on bail and decamping to New South Wales, where you were found residing in a share house.  Although it is not attributed as being in the possession of either of you, police also discovered at those premises equipment used in card skimming and cash trapping transactions.

21I now turn to your personal circumstances.  I begin with you, Florinel Camara.  You are now 25 and were born in Romania.  Your parents had each previously had two marriages and met in Australia, your mother having come here when she was 16 in 1983, and your father in 1987.  They returned to Romania in 1988, where you born, and you have two younger siblings from that relationship.  Your father, your counsel informed me, was extremely violent, regularly assaulting your mother in your presence and while she was pregnant, at one stage in 1994 assaulting her while she was nine months' pregnant, with the child subsequently dying two days after birth. 

22You told psychiatrist Danny Sullivan, whose report dated 31 March 2014 was tendered on the plea, that your father was violent to everyone, a heavy drinker who also assaulted you on a regular basis.  There was a degree of toing and froing between Australia and Romania by your mother and father, but you completed school, the equivalent of year 12, in Romania and studied at a university in Bucharest for a year.  You did not like this and instead obtained employment in the family construction company, where you worked in an administrative position.

23You had visited Australia four or five times and are a dual citizen.  In 2005 your parents, who had then reconciled after several partings, purchased a house in Altona Meadows, your father then leaving to return to Romania in 2006 and you and your mother and siblings returning later that year at his insistence.  In 2007, your mother again returned to Australia after beatings and violence recommenced at the hands of your father, your father following, again the two of them reconciling and returning to Romania in 2008, where the violence recommenced.

24In 2009 your mother and younger siblings again returned to Australia, your father remaining in Romania.  In late 2009, early 2010, you returned to Australia by yourself to see your mother and siblings, your father then following and inflicting more violence and your mother taking out an intervention order and your father returning to Romania.  There were further reconciliations and further partings over your father's violence, you coming out for visits but essentially living with your girlfriend and cousins and older step-siblings in Romania.  Eventually there was a final parting between your parents in late 2011 and your mother returned to Romania.

25In May 2012, your counsel informed me, your father severely assaulted you and sent you to Australia to sell the family home.  You arrived in June 2012, selling the house in around October 2012, and forwarding the proceeds back to Romania, where you assumed they would be divided between your parents, but your father took it all.  You lived with your maternal grandmother in Australia, who had arrived here in 1983 with her daughter, your mother. 

26The scenario you describe to Dr Sullivan, which was also put to me by your counsel on the plea, was that you met the co-accused Donka and Anania at a supermarket, where you overheard them speaking Romanian, introduced yourself and then became friends, ultimately moving into their unit.  It was put that you became involved in this offending as a result of Donka and Anania introducing you to the use of drugs, to which you became addicted, and then introducing you to the offending with which you are now charged.  Through them, your counsel said, you were reconnected with the accused Georges, who was a godfather to your sister and whom you had not seen for some years.  He, you said, was the leader of this entire enterprise.

27Your counsel told me you engaged in this offending largely at his behest and, when you were released, returned to that offending essentially because he ordered you to.  Your counsel told me that by virtue of his age, 53, and standing in the Romanian community that Georges, as a mature-adult friend of your father's, pressured you and this meant that you felt you must continue with the offending.  Your counsel pointed out that, when you were apprehended by police on the second occasion, all the cash proceeds of that offending were found in Georges' possession.  For reasons upon which I will later expand, I do not accept that this was your role, a position with which the prosecution concurs, and that in fact you held a senior role in this criminal enterprise. 

28You have no prior or subsequent criminal convictions.  Dr Sullivan described a low mood as a result of your father's violence in the effects upon your family.  You have, whilst in custody, worked in the kitchen over the last four months and received visits from your mother and aunt and cousins residing in Australia.  Your mother now resides in Australia.

29You spoke of some problems with alcohol, stating that since about the age of 16 you had drunk large amounts of beer and whiskey and then developed a cocaine habit as a result of your relationship with Donka and Anania, which you used by inhaling and developed a significant craving.  You said you had smoked ice on a few occasions but had not persisted with this.  You told
Dr Sullivan you were isolated and lonely when you came to Australia and were thus attracted to the sound of the Romanian language being spoken by Donka and Anania.  As I have already said, I do not accept the veracity of that information that you gave to Dr Sullivan.

30Dr Sullivan believed that you, having described increasing alcohol, cannabis and cocaine use, met the diagnosis of poly-substance abuse disorder and dependence of those substances.  He stated,

"On the account of Mr Camara, the co-accused men used his burgeoning dependence to pressure him to participate in the offending by indebting him to them."

31I have already said that I do not accept that that was the scenario in relation to you and your offending.  There was, in Dr Sullivan's view, no limb of Verdins applicable to your case, no indication of a mental disorder affecting your capacity to think clearly or make rational choices or that you were disinhibited such that the extent of the offending was obscured or that service of a prison sentence would be harder for you than the normal prisoner. 

32I will move on shortly to the plea material tendered in relation to your three co-defendants.  Each of them describe you as being the initiator of their involvement in this conspiracy.  This is the position put by the prosecution.  I accept beyond reasonable doubt that you held a senior role in this criminal enterprise.  It is you who are seen on every occasion in CCTV footage of the offending comprising this conspiracy.  On the prosecution case, the typical method involved you using cards to make the transactions and/or insert the fork.  It is alleged you were present on all occasions of the cash trapping.  On the basis of that material, I do find that you were a major player and organiser in this conspiracy. 

33I now turn to you, Christian Georges.  You are now 53 years of age, the eldest of three children born to your parents.  Your mother is dead and your father lives in Romania, as does one younger brother, aged 42.  You had a sister who died of a stroke in 1995, when you were 35.  You were born in Romania, emigrating to Australia in 1980 when you were 19, escaping first to Russia, when you accompanied a Romanian soccer team to play there.  You asked for asylum, which you were granted, ultimately coming to Australia, as I have said.  You completed the equivalent of year 12 in Bucharest, where you grew up, then played soccer professionally in a first division team.

34Within a year of your arriving in Australia, your parents and siblings joined you, settling briefly in Adelaide and then permanently in Melbourne.  Your father was a truck driver.  You obtained a contract with a soccer team in Melbourne, playing division one for about 18 months, and continued to play professional soccer until you were 28 and involved in a motor car accident, where you sustained back and neck injuries, bringing an end to your playing days.  You also in those years worked in the transport industry as a truck driver, which occupation you continued.

35You have a fairly significant prior criminal history.  Following your accident in 1985, according to your counsel, you became involved with people seriously engaged in the illicit drug industry and were charged with trafficking in a drug of dependence, on which you were on bail for four years until sentence by the Melbourne County Court on 2 November 1990 to a term of imprisonment of eight years and six months with a minimum term of seven years and six months.  You were released in 1995.

36Your sister died in that year and you returned with your family to Romania for a period of ten years, where you worked in the agriculture business.  You met your de facto wife in 1998, she also being of Romanian origin, and your first daughter being born whilst you were in custody.  She also returned to Romania with you, where two more daughters were born, and you returned to Australia in 2005, telling psychological Carla Lechner, whose report dated 26 March 2014 was tendered on the plea, that you did so because your children wanted to come back.

37However, Interpol documentation was produced by the prosecution indicating that you are currently a fugitive from the Romanian courts, where you are wanted to serve a sentence imposed on you for drug trafficking, it being alleged that between May and June 2003 two accomplices sold 10,000 ecstasy tablets, 200 grams of cannabis and 200 grams of cocaine supplied by you.  You were convicted of drug trafficking, a sentence of ten years' imprisonment being imposed, with the remainder of the sentence to be served being nine years and six months' imprisonment, this conviction, according to the documentation, being handed down on 22 December 2003.

38Your counsel informed me that in fact you were acquitted of this charge but later, on appeal, that acquittal was reversed and you were sentenced, that appeal taking place in your absence.  The prosecution conceded it would take a period of 12 months to expand upon the Interpol documentation.  In any event, it was put by the prosecution that this does place some question-marks around your decision to leave Romania and return here, a decision not necessarily being based on your daughter's desires.

39On your return to Australia, you continued to work as a truck driver for companies such as Atlas and Palmer Steel, the latter company you being employed by when you were arrested.  You began to experience significant financial difficulties as your daughters grew up to become talented sportswomen in a particular sporting field, which, in order to save them embarrassment, will not be specified by me, they having played at an international level.  Notwithstanding that your two older daughters in particular received sporting scholarships to assist them, the general expenses connected to their continued participation at this level in this sport were beyond your means.  You began gambling in order to increase your income, but this resulted in disastrous losses.  At the time of your arrest, your wife was overseas with your eldest daughter, who was participating in the sport at a seriously high level in Romania, and you were caring for your two younger daughters. 

40Your counsel informed me that you knew Camara's father and were approached by Camara and invited to participate in this offending, which you told Ms Lechner you regarded as an opportunity, as you needed extra money.  Ms Lechner administered limited testing, essentially the Beck Depression Inventory, which resulted in a score falling into the moderate range, which
Ms Lechner stated was partly reactive to your current situation and this court hearing, although she believed you had been struggling with low mood for some time.

41I received a written reference from your partner, who described you in glowing terms as a reliable, trustworthy, humorous and loving man who was a wonderful partner and "amazing" father to your daughters.  She reported the obviously negative impact your incarceration has had upon your children.  Your counsel informed me that, when you were first released on bail, one of the conditions was that you not attend any international points of departure, which impacted on your ability to return to your previous employment as a truck driver, this necessitating you to pick up goods and freight from various ports. 

42As a result, you were unable to be employed in this capacity and returned to the second bout of offending, in which you were involved with Camara in order to obtain money.  Neither in your case nor in that of Camara was the prosecution able to show any general evidence of enrichment, notwithstanding the fairly large amounts of money obtained from ATMs throughout the offending or the discovery of cash in your possession and in your car.  I have also received a reference from your former employer, Misir Mitoiu or Ari's Transport, confirming you have an offer of employment there.

43I now turn to you, Antal Donka.  You are 37 years old and were born in Romania.  Your parents are both dead.  You father was an engineer and your mother a hairdresser.  You have two older married sisters with children who live in Romania.  Your counsel told me that you grew up in simple but not unhappy circumstances and were sent to a military school, where you failed exams and were sent home.  You then attended a hospitality school, where you remained for four years to the age of 18 in 1995, and from which you graduated.  You then worked in a bar-discotheque for three and a half years.

44You moved to Spain, where you trained as a chef for two and a half years, working in tapas bars for about six years.  Due to the increased cost of living there, you moved to England in 2005, where you joined up with a friend from Romania, who owned a restaurant, and formed a partnership with him in a pastry and cakes business.  This business you ran successfully for three years with your friend, who managed the business side, whilst you worked a patisserie chef, you maintaining an interest in it and it affording you an income since you have been in Australia.

45You came to Melbourne for a holiday with your co-defendant and friend, Anania, in October 2012, and decided that Melbourne offered a business opportunity for you and decided to stay for longer than you planned.  You undertook a course at Cambridge International College in Melbourne, undertaking a five-day-a-week course, your long-term plan being to open a patisserie store in Melbourne.

46You have been in a relationship for about 15 years, your fiancee moving to Canada shortly after the commencement of the relationship and the two of you conducting a long-distance relationship for about 13 years.  On your arrival in Melbourne, you began to study, renting a unit in Altona Meadows with Anania.  Your counsel told me you and Anania were approached by Camara at a supermarket and he developed a friendship with the pair of you and introduced you to other friends of his.  You and Anania apparently began participating in a social life with Camara, who eventually moved in with you after saying he had nowhere to live, which involved round-the-clock drinking, partying and drug taking.

47In relation to your offending, your counsel informed me that, some weeks after moving in, Camara invited you and Anania to "come on out with us".  You went along, parked the car and got out and your role was to walk past, into a nearby store, to buy cigarettes.  You were aware something dodgy was going on.  You went out pursuant to similar requests a couple of times after that.  It was put that you did not know exactly what was going on or what the role of other persons involved in the scam was.  You were not paid a wage and were never given cash, but drinks, foods and drugs and money for gambling were paid for by Camara whenever you went out.

48On the first occasion you accompanied Camara, you went to two ATMs.  Your counsel describes your involvement in this as "wilful blindness" as to what was going on.  Your counsel said you were not told what Camara was doing or why Georges was there, that you saw Georges use an umbrella, that the offending was not premeditated but opportunistic at first.  You were seen the least of the four of you on CCTV footage.  You were seen three times, two of them on CCTV footage from 20 January 2013, 30 minutes apart, and once on 16 January 2013. 

49You intended to attend fairly regularly at school and a letter from the director of studies at Cambridge International College noted that you enrolled from
4 March to 12 May 2013 in Certificate III, spoken and written English, a five-day-a-week course delivered over 20 hours, that you attended 84 per cent of this course, that you received competency in only two of the seven required modules and that you enrolled in a Certificate IV in spoken and written English from 13 May to 29 September 2013, followed by a Bachelor of Business Management from 24 August 2013 to 22 October 2013.  Both these enrolments were cancelled due to your non-commencement.

50After you were released on bail, you became concerned, according to your counsel, that you would not be represented at the hearing, that there were questions about you being unable to be funded by Legal Aid due to your income in the English business and that you simply absconded with
Mr Anania because you did not want to face the charges unrepresented, that you did not have sufficient money to pay a lawyer and did not want to go to gaol.

51It is the prosecution case that your mobile phone was located in the vicinity on a large number of occasions when cash trapping or ATM skimming was taking place and that there was evidence that you had involvement with the others at a time when cash was trapped.  The prosecution conceded it could not say you were with the phone on each of the occasions; it was noted that a large amount of equipment relating to this fraudulent activity surrounding the ATMs was found at your house.

52You have no prior conviction.  Whilst in gaol, you have become a billet, undertaking all possible courses offered by the Metropolitan Remand Centre and have returned two clean samples from randomly taken urine screens.  I received a reference from your fiancee, Mirabella Stefan, stating that she is your fiancee and a full-time student in accountancy in Toronto and working part-time as a real estate agent.  She said she had known you for 15 years and was surprised at you being involved in this sort of criminal activity.  She stated that you and she had plans to marry this year and live in Canada.

53Finally, I turn to you, Valentin Anania.  You are 30 years of age.  You were born in Romania, where your parents and a younger brother still live.  You completed high school there and worked in a family convenience store from the ages of 18 to 20.  You are engaged to a 30-year-old social care worker who emigrated here from Ireland and she resides in New South Wales and whom you met online in December 2012.  When you were 21, you moved to London, where you became a courier driver, ultimately starting your own company there at the age of 23 and, at its peak, employing six people.

54As a result of the GFC, your business declined.  By 2009, you were again working as a sole operative.  You continued to work as a driver and, between 2009 and 2012, studied a bachelor's degree in politics by correspondence through a Romanian university whilst living in London. You completed this degree in 2012.  You came to Australia with Mr Donka, a life-long friend, for a holiday in October 2012 and decided to apply for a student visa with a view to settling in Australia permanently.  You too were granted a student visa to study a Bachelor of Business and Marketing at the Cambridge International College, which you attended for three months prior to your arrest.

55Prior to the fall of the Communist government in Romania, your mother had been a High Court judge, after which she and your father both set up businesses which were successful and they remain supportive of you.  You told psychological Warren Simmons, whose report dated 24 March 2014 was tendered on the plea, that you began drinking when you were 14 and by the age of 18 were drinking on a daily basis, consuming at its peak an amount of one half to two bottles of brandy a day.  You did not drink much after you arrived in England, although your daily alcohol consumption gradually increased, which pattern continued until you left to come to Australia.  You began using cocaine for the first time at the age of 25 while on holiday in Europe, which continued on an intermittent basis until you arrived in Australia and use became regular. 

56As I have said, you met your girlfriend online in December 2012.  A written reference from her was tendered during the plea and she remains supportive of you.  You told Mr Simmons that in December 2012 you were approached by Camara at a supermarket who invited you and Donka to coffee.  You said he then began showing you a good time, plying you with alcohol and cocaine, and eventually moving into your spare room.  It appears you and Mr Donka had saved money for the holiday in Australia and began renting a fairly cheap unit in Altona Meadows once you arrived, as well as renting a car. 

57You told Mr Simmons that eventually you and Donka would spend eight or nine hours a day at a pokie venue Camara, that you quickly became addicted to playing the pokies and that your cocaine habit spiralled to the point where you were using three to four grams most days and sleeping little.  Initially you became a driver for Camara, who was committing the offences, your payment taking the form of Camara paying for the party lifestyle you were living, that is, paying for drugs, alcohol and presumably your gambling on pokie machines.  You did concede you were occasionally given small amounts of cash in the region of about $20.

58You have a limited but significant prior criminal history, receiving a six-month sentence of imprisonment in England for handling stolen goods, which your counsel informed me involved you travelling with three friends in a car with a large number of stolen goods.  After your release on bail, both you and Donka ultimately decamped to New South Wales, where you were then located.  I have already canvassed the reasons given by Donka for breaching his bail; your counsel informed me you became concerned Camara was continuing to offend and did not wish to be involved in further criminal activity of that kind.

59I have some difficulty with the explanations proffered by you and Donka in this regard.  You were both arrested living in a share house where equipment relevant to the offending which you face in this court was located.  It was conceded by the prosecution that it cannot be said there was any link between you and Donka in this equipment or that you took it with you or that you were involved in its use and no charges have arisen in relation to it.  I find it curious, however, to say the least, that each of you was involved in this very specific type of offending involving ATMs and then were located in a house in another state where equipment of this type was also located.  Whilst clearly I can draw no ultimate conclusions from this material, it does undermine my view of the bona fide nature of your instructions to counsel on this point.

60Returning to you, Mr Anania, whilst in gaol you have undertaken a number of programs, have detoxified from drug and alcohol use without undertaking any particular courses, but you have your name on a waiting list there and your counsel pointed out the police were able to trace ultimately you and Donka by a paper trail left by your use of the rental car that you hired in Melbourne and by credit cards. 

61It was the prosecution case that I should be cynical that all four of you were here in Australia for innocent reasons apart from you, Georges, who were already residing in Melbourne.  In relation to you, Donka and Anania, it was pointed out that you came here in October 2012, that your offending began in December 2012.  It was urged upon me that I should regard as suspicious the fact that the two of you made arrangements to extend student visas, even though you were already offending, and given that you became involved so quickly in the offending before this court.

62It was essentially submitted that I should be suspicious of the coincidence which apparently underlay Camara's ability to link up three Romanians living in the same suburban area who then went on to commit a large number of offences of a kind where knowledge was needed of these ATM machines.  I should note that the visas of both of you, Donka and Anania, have now been cancelled.

63I am satisfied that you, Camara, and you, Georges, played leading roles in this conspiracy.  I am satisfied that in terms of seriousness you then come third, if I can put it that way, Mr Anania, given your involvement in the attachment of the skimming device to the ATMs.  You, Donka, have the least proved involvement.  I do indeed have some cynicism as to the instructions proffered to me by your various counsel.  You have each been involved in a highly sophisticated, wide-scale operation.  The best part of $200,000 was extracted in the cash trapping operations, which involved interference with a very large number of ATMs.  That money has never been recovered and no explanation given except that others, and none of you, profited mostly from these transactions.

64You, Camara and Georges, commenced re-offending soon after being placed on bail in a blatant and continuous fashion.  You, Donka and Anania, fled your bail, ending up in a house, as I have said, in New South Wales, containing equipment used precisely for this type of offending.  I am indeed in the circumstances, as I have said, cynical about the instructions given by each of you as to how you came to be involved in this criminal enterprise, what it involved and the reasons for your actions following your initial arrest and grant of bail. 

65Each of you has sought to lay blame for your offending on others:  you, Camara, on Georges, Anania and Donka; you, Georges, Anania and Donka, on Camara.  I do not accept the wilful blindness argument put on behalf of you, Donka and Anania:  you, Anania, for obvious reasons, given you were involved in the actual skimming of information on the machine by use of the duck bill; and you, Donka, because you have pleaded guilty to a charge which involves an admission of knowledge of conspiracy, apart from anything else.  I accept, however, that I can only sentence you according to the material that can be provided by the prosecution, upon which I can form an opinion on a beyond-reasonable-doubt basis.

66Particularly in relation to, Donka, I accept that this is so; although, in my view, whilst the prosecution cannot prove that you were with your phone on each and every occasion, that it was used near a particular fraudulent transaction being carried out on an ATM machine, I believe I can be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you were present on more occasions than evidenced by the CCTV footage and that your involvement in this offending, although the least in role, was more than the three occasions captured on CCTV and involved a knowledge of events well beyond wilful blindness.

67In the case of you, Camara, I accept that you are still a relatively youthful offender, that you have no prior convictions, that you have family support, that you entered a plea of guilty at an early stage.  As against this you played, I am satisfied, a major role in this scam, as I have said, and you continued on with it regardless whilst on bail.

68In relation to you, Georges, while I accept that you entered a plea of guilty at an early stage, that you enjoy the support of your wife and daughters, you do have a serious prior criminal history both here and in Romania, played a major role in this offending and, like Camara, continued to offend in precisely the same way whilst on bail.

69In relation to you, Anania, I accept that you have a good employment history and successfully ran your own business.  As against that, you were gaoled for six months in England for dishonesty and, in my view, played a hands-on role in this scam insofar as the card-skimming activities were involved.  As I have said a couple of times, I find it most unsatisfactory that, on seeking to evade the consequence of your criminal actions, you were located in a house in another state containing this equipment, as was Donka, of course, which I regard as being more than coincidental.

70You, Donka, I am satisfied can be proven by the prosecution to have had the least, or most minor, role in the scam.  I accept that you have no prior convictions, entered a plea of guilty at an early stage and have a good employment history involving the running of a successful, ongoing business in London.  Again, however, your location on arrest; your fleeing on bail; your close association with Anania, who played a significantly greater role than you in this scam; your location at the house in New South Wales, where there was also this particularised equipment, lead me to have some cynicism about you and the limits of that role.

71Overall, I am unable to be satisfied that the prospects of future rehabilitation in relation to any of you are anything more than fair, given I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you, Camara and Georges, took leading roles; you, Anania, played a hands-on role; and you, Donka, were more involved in this criminal enterprise than you say, though I cannot determine the extent of it. 

72Some attempt was made by Camara's counsel to talk about no particular person having been disadvantaged by his client's activities; this is, of course, a nonsense proposition.  These conspiracies comprised a serious, significant and sophisticated attack upon the integrity of an electronic banking system patronised by virtually every member of the community.  It struck at the security and safety of the way in which the vast majority of people carry out their ordinary banking.  It exploited a financial system which has the capacity to affect the everyday lives of millions of people.  In protection of it, a court's response must be one of particular sternness with the imposition of sentences designed to deter others from like activity, to make the seriousness of this offending and to punish those who engage in it.

73The possible consequences of your offending, if it had continued on unabated and undetected, could have been calamitous.  There has been no argument that I should sentence you in any way other than by the imposition of a term of immediate imprisonment.  In sentencing you, I take into account each of the mitigating factors which I have already outlined in my sentencing remarks, which includes the early pleas of each of you and hence the avoidance of a long and costly trial, together with the maximum penalties available for such offending.  Could you stand up, please.

74I therefore sentence you as follows, beginning with you, Camara.  On Charge 1, you are sentenced to five years' imprisonment.  On Charge 2, you are sentenced to three years' imprisonment.  I declare that one year of the sentence imposed on Charge 2 be served cumulatively to the sentence imposed on Charge 1, giving a total effective sentence of six years.  I order that you serve a minimum term of four years before becoming eligible for parole.

75I now deal with you, Christian Georges.  On Charge 1, you are sentenced to five years' imprisonment.  On Charge 2, you are sentenced to two years' imprisonment.  I order that one year of the sentence imposed on Charge 2 be served cumulatively to the sentence imposed on Charge 1, giving a total effective sentence of six years.  I order that you serve a minimum term of four years before becoming eligible for parole.

76In relation to you, Antal Donka, on Charge 1 you are sentenced to two years' imprisonment.  I order that you serve a minimum term of 16 months before becoming eligible for parole.

77In relation to you, Valentin Anania, on Charge 1, I sentence you to three years' imprisonment.  I order that you serve a minimum term of two years before becoming eligible for parole.

78Pursuant to s.6AAA, I declare that had you not pleaded guilty I would have sentenced you, Florinel Camara, to seven years and six months' imprisonment, with a minimum term of five years and six months' imprisonment.  Pursuant to s.6AAA, I declare that had you not pleaded guilty I would have sentenced you, Christian Georges, to seven years and six months' imprisonment, with a minimum term of five years and six months' imprisonment.  Pursuant to s.6AAA, I declare that had you not pleaded guilty I would have sentenced you, Antal Donka, to three years and six months' imprisonment, with a minimum term of two years' imprisonment.  Pursuant to s.6AAA, I declare that had you not pleaded guilty I would have sentenced you, Valentin Anania, to four years and six months' imprisonment, with a minimum term of three years and six months' imprisonment. 

79Now, have a seat, please.  I need to determine what the - - -

80MR PICKERING:  Presentence detention?

81HER HONOUR:  - - - presentence detention - - -

82MR PICKERING:  Yes, Your Honour.  There's been eight days since the plea, which means that Mr Georges would be 250 days.

83HER HONOUR:  Yes.

84

MR PICKERING:  Mr Camara would be 247 and both Mr Donka and

Mr Anania would be 197.

85HER HONOUR:  I declare that 247 days of the sentence imposed upon you, Mr Camara, has already been served by way of presentence detention.  I declare that 250 days of the sentence imposed upon you, Christian Georges, has already been served by way of presentence detention.  I declare that 191 days has already been served in relation to the sentences imposed upon you, Antal Donka and Valentin Anania.

86MR PICKERING:  197, Your Honour, I'm sorry.

87HER HONOUR:  Sorry, 197 days has already been served by way of presentence detention in relation to the sentences imposed on you, Antal Donka, and you, Valentin Anania. 

88I think that's all I have to do.

89MR PICKERING:  Yes, Your Honour.  I think that on the - you may have made the ancillary orders on the last occasion.

90HER HONOUR:  All right.  Did I do that?

91COUNSEL:  You haven't signed them yet.

92HER HONOUR:  All right.  Yes, can you take the prisoners down, please.  Take them down, pleased - downstairs.  I note that I am signing a series of restitution orders.

93MR PICKERING:  Yes, Your Honour.

94HER HONOUR:  I don't think I - do I actually have to read them out?

95MR PICKERING:  No, you don't, Your Honour.  They're all not opposed.  In effect, Your Honour - and I think I mentioned this on the last occasion, in effect basically represent the money that was found.  They're not compensation for the 184,000.

96HER HONOUR:  All right, they're restitution orders. 

97MR PICKERING:  Yes.

98Thanks a lot.  We'll stand down till 11 o'clock, thank you. 

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