Four people suspected to have hacked into the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) taxes systems between 2010 and 2012 have been arraigned in a court in Uganda.
The four, including an ICT specialist, two clearing agents and a businessman, were arrested last week charged with hacking into URA’s domestic taxes systems, manipulating import duty and vehicle registration records — that allegedly saw them clear more than 200 vehicles illegally.
URA told the Uganda High Court the hacking had cost them over USh2 billion in taxes.
Explaining how the arrests were made, an officer, who participated in the operation told Chimpreports.com: “When we closed in on them, they hurriedly closed the computers. Luckily, when one of them was opened, it had the home page of the URA intranet.”
The men allegedly accessed URA’s Automated System for Customs Data (ASYCUDA), a computerized customs management system that covers most foreign trade procedures. This system handles manifests, customs declarations, transit and accounting procedures, where the four carried out their fraud cases.
URA has automated their systems in a bid to provide better facilitation to tax payment.
