Federal First Instance Court sentenced Lencha Zegeye a well-known businessman to a 13 year prison term after it found him guilty of evading taxes, engaging in illegal banking activity and money laundering. Lencha and other big names from the country's business sector, such as Ayele Debela general manager and shareholder of ADH International, also known as 'IMF' for his lending business and Gebrekidan Beyene, a.k.a 'Morocco', general manager and shareholder of Gebrekidan Plc were detained last June by the Revenue and Customs Authority (RCuA) for tax evasion and other business-related irregularities.
Lencha and the rest are well-known in the business community for their loan businesses. Businessmen eager to borrow from them are not required to present collateral. Instead, they are required to make a legal contractual agreement that details the interest, total amount borrowed and the repayment period, according to close sources.  
The huge discrepancy between the turnover of the suspects' registered companies and their transactions prompted RCuA to make the investigation that led to the arrests in June 2009.
Lencha was not capable of refuting the testimonies and evidence made against him during the trial. Thus, the Criminal Bench of the Federal First Instance Court passed its verdict last Monday, March 8. The 13 year prison term is broken down to ten years for deliberate tax evasion, two for engaging in money laundering and one for illegal banking.  It also decided to confiscate five million birr seized from the defendant's illegal banking business and fined him 100, 000 birr.
The court also decided on payment of his tax dues and authorised RCuA to confiscate the seized money.
Ayele Debela's and Gebrekidan Beyene's cases are ongoing.