Duo swindles US$8 800 from homeseeker

Michael Mashiri

Two Msasa Park men, who swindled US$8 800 from another man, have been granted a bail of ZWL$50 000 each.

Innocent Maposa (41) and Tonderai Katsa (38), appeared before the Harare Magistrates’ Court facing fraud allegations as defined in Section 136 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act Chapter 9:23.

The court heard that in October 2022, the complainant, Tinashe Musuwa (29), was looking for a medium density residential stand to buy and he approached one Tomabani Mupfuki, whom he had previously dealt with as a commodity broker when he purchased a stand in Dzivaresekwa Harare.

Mupfuki took complainant to Katsa, who acted as an agent and showed Musuwa physical residential stand number 2586, New Msasa Park in Harare, measuring 920 square metres.

Katsa, lied that residential stand is 2566 belonged to Maposa.

Complainant got interested and signed an agreement of sale with a total value of US$18 000 and paid a deposit of US$8 800 through one Lawrence Jena, an estate agent.

On 11 November, 2022, complainant went to the stand intending to develop and discovered that Rameck Bofu was developing the same stand, claiming ownership of the same property.

Complainant reported the matter to the police.

Investigations revealed that residential stand number 2586 belonged to Bofu while stand number 2566 is owned by Brian Mvundura and none of the accused persons owned the stand they had sold.

Due to this misrepresentation by the accused persons, complainant suffered an actual prejudice of US$8 800 and nothing was recovered.

Magistrate Dennis Mangosi ordered two to appear before the court on January 4 for the ruling.

On top of the ZWL$50 000 bail each, the two are also expected to report once a week at their nearest police station and not to interfere with witnesses.