Jailhouse Rock: Elvis Presley jailed for fraud in Russia
Being the namesake of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll won’t save you from Russian justice system, Ghana national Elvis Presley Barima has learned after being handed a one-year sentence for fraud by a Moscow court.
The 29-year-old, who came to Russia to become a doctor, tricked his own compatriots into funding his stay at a university in Moscow, the court said in a statement on Monday. In March, Elvis Presley Barima offered two of his friends “assistance” in transferring their tuition fees to what, he said, was a university account.
The scheme allowed Barima to acquire 463,000 rubles (around $7,800), which he then used to settle only his own university bills. He was sentenced to one year in a penal colony for “committing fraud, which caused significant damage to a person,” the court said in its ruling, which is yet to take legal effect.
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The confinement of Elvis Presley in Russia shouldn’t be viewed as a tit-for-tat response to the arrest of Vladimir Putin in the US late in August. Back then, an African-American namesake of the Russian president was apprehended by the police for trespassing and harassing employees at a Florida supermarket.
