Article 368

A person who, in order to obtain a gain for himself or a third party, or cause damage to another person, makes a false instrument, writing or document, knowing it to be false, with intent that it should in any way be used or acted on as genuine or induce the belief that it is genuine,

an offence under this Article for an amount not exceeding 100,000 Nakfas, or any other benefit calculated to be equivalent to that amount, shall be punished as a Class 8 serious offence, punishable with a definite term of imprisonment of not less than 3 years and not more than 5 years;

an offence under this Article for an amount between 100,001 and 1,000,000 Nakfas, or any other benefit calculated to be equivalent to that amount, shall be punished as a Class 7 serious offence, punishable with a definite term of imprisonment of not less than 5 years and not more than 7 years;

an offence under this Article for an amount between 1,000,001 and 5,000,000 Nakfas, or any other benefit calculated to be equivalent to that amount, shall be punished as a Class 6 serious offence, punishable with a definite term of imprisonment of not less than 7 years and not more than 10 years;

an offence under this Article for an amount exceeding 5,000,000 Nakfas, or any other benefit calculated to be equivalent to that amount, shall be punished as a Class 5 serious offence, punishable with a definite term of imprisonment of not less than 10 years and not more than 13 years.

For purposes of this Chapter, “instrument” or “writing” or “document” includes printing or any other method of recording information, and cheques, bills of exchange, letters of credit, promissory notes, bank deposit books, certificates of deposit, shares or bonds, tokens, stamps, seals, credit cards, bank money cards, phone cards or other cards for access to or having value, badges, passports, licences, trade-marks, tapes, disks, diplomas, certificates, testimonials or any other symbols of value, right, privilege or identification.

A reference in this Chapter to inducing a person to accept a false document as genuine includes a reference to causing a machine to respond to the document as if it were a genuine document.