By Mulengera Reporters
A group of importers and installers dealing in electronics downtown Kampala, and more so those operating on Anifa Towers and the Energy Center Building, have since 2023 been under investigations by Police detectives attached to the enforcement arm of Uganda Communications Commission (UCC).
These are fraudulent actors who have been using internet and other technological capabilities to come up with manipulative codes, which for years has been enabling them to rip off MultiChoice Uganda which chiefly trades as DSTV, and it also offers other services like the Gotv platform.
Millions of foreign soccer-loving Ugandans always invest in DSTV installations to be able to watch their favorite English and European footballing teams and clubs play. A lot of such recreational sports are exclusively accessible through DSTV, a thing that has kept MultiChoice Uganda in lucrative business for decades.
Streetwise Ugandans, operating downtown Kampala, have been taking advantage to cash in, through engaging in unauthorized and actually fraudulent decoder trading, DSTV connections and installations. They leverage internet and fraudulently-enacted access codes to offer DSTV-related services while holding themselves out to be the authorized MultiChoice Uganda agents whereas not.
All along the authorities had opted to engage them amicably in the hope they would abandon their crime enterprise. They would be apprehended by the UCC enforcement teams, only to be pardoned after promising reform, and never to do it again. They never kept their word. They never stopped.
Available information now indicates that such fraudsters have always been confident that the top executives at MultiChoice Uganda would keep restraining UCC from ever formally charging and prosecuting them for fear of the resultant bad media publicity that would be occasioned onto the DSTV brand, if such strict enforcement steps were ever taken.
Contrary to what they thought, recently time came and the authorities at UCC came to the conclusion that enough was enough. It was time to crack the whip in order to bring such economic saboteurs to book as a way of deterring others. This resulted into the re-arrest and arraignment of two suspected fraudsters in the names of Michael Jjagwe and Kassim Ssenyonjo.
They are both electronics’ importers/installers respectively based at Anifa Towers and the Energy Center building. Their anti-DSTV acts are criminal and related to offences created under the relevant regulations. Last week, the duo (charged separately) was arraigned before a Magistrate at the Makindye-based Utilities, Standards & Wildlife Court.
As expected, they pleaded not guilty and applied for bail which wasn’t promptly granted. And, in the presence of the prosecutors from UCC, who were led by Nasif Kagawa and Kevin Bakulumpagi, the Magistrate remanded them to Luzira prison from where they will be delivered back to Court at the next scheduled hearing session.
Charles Masanso, the anti-piracy Manager at MultiChoice Uganda, will be on watching brief to ensure that his employer’s interests are adequately well taken care of throughout the trial process. Preliminary investigations show that offences of this nature are widespread, are on the rise and that their commission is occasioning tremendous cost and detriment to MultiChoice Uganda. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
