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.
READ MORE: Robbing rodent: Girl-and-hamster gang suspected of several home burglaries in Russia
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.