Serial fraudster showed 'clear premeditation' before stealing from Canberra club through fake refunds

A fraudster who stole an EFTPOS machine and transferred money between accounts as part of a scheme to “pay a drug debt” will stay behind bars.

On 12 October 2023, Ali Al Kinani was caught on CCTV stealing an EFTPOS machine from the bistro section of the Canberra Labor Club in Belconnen.

After taking the EFTPOS machine home, he would steal about $16,500 through processed refunds and attempt to steal about $51,600 over the next few days.

He would also move the stolen $16,500 through multiple bank accounts.

In sentencing remarks released on Wednesday (11 December), ACT Supreme Court Justice Verity McWilliam said Al Kinani’s behaviour had shown “clear premeditation”.

Between 16 and 18 October 2023, he would refund the roughly $16,500 across 19 separate transactions to three different bank cards.

Over the next three days – between 17 October and 19 October – Al Kinani would move the money through multiple bank accounts.

Justice McWilliam said this was done “in an attempt to disguise its source”, before he either withdrew it as cash from an ATM or transferred it to his own bank account.

“[There were] an extensive number of false bank accounts and identities [that] were used to blur the origins of the proceeds of crime,” she said.

Also, in a January 2024 search of his residence, police found card printers among other items.

“The charges relating to use were not pressed,” she said.

Justice McWilliam said that, as of Al Kinani’s sentencing, police had not finished investigating bank statements for other cards used in the scheme.

“Nevertheless, the offender has accepted the statement of facts and has otherwise not disputed the allegations,” she said.

In September 2024, Al Kinani pled guilty to five charges – obtaining property by deception, attempting to obtain property by deception, possessing a device for making false documents, money laundering and theft – while his case was before the Magistrates Court.

“The offender was initially charged with 139 offences, which was reduced to the present five charges – some of which are rolled-up charges,” she said.

Justice McWilliam noted that Al Kinani “reportedly displayed some insight” to the author of a court report before sentencing, and said that he “accepts full responsibility for his actions”.

He had had some engagement with alcohol and drug counselling in the past, and had been accepted into a counselling program which will start in the coming year.

However, she described him as having “guarded” prospects of rehabilitation, including a medium to high risk of re-offending and an “ambitious, but possibly naïve” belief he had resolved his addiction.

“I say naïve because keeping off drugs in a custodial setting with its highly structured environment is a world apart from abstaining from drugs when the pressures of life, family and work have returned, along with anti-social friends who the offender considers played a role in his latest drug use,” she said.

Justice McWilliam handed Al Kinani a total sentence of just over one year and eleven months, partly backdated to account for several months spent in custody.

His non-parole period will finish in April 2025.

She also took no action on a breach of a 12-month good behaviour order, handed to Al Kinani in November 2022.