Man in court for US$3 000 fraud

Michael Mashiri

A Marlborough man who is alleged to have defrauded US$3 200 has been arraigned to court.

Herbert Shungu Mhundwa, 52, appeared before magistrate Dennis Mangosi at the Harare Magistrates' Courts in a case in which the complainant in the matter is Dereck Nyekete of Hatfield, director of Status Engineering.

The State, through Grace Mugocheke, alleges that in 2022, Nyekete bought 250 000 empty grain storage bags from Harvestbok, a company based in South Africa.

The grain bags cost US$60 000 and he paid US$24 000 in South Africa and was left with a balance of US$36 000.

He failed to pay the balance in time and was taken to the High Court of Zimbabwe’s Civil division by Harvestbok's legal representatives, Pasi Mushoriwa and Partners who are based in Zimbabwe.

Nyekete failed to attend court and a default judgement was given by the High Court of Zimbabwe against him.

The sheriff of the High Court was ordered to attach equivalent property in order to settle the debt.

The sheriff attached 3 blow moulding machines and one injection moulding machine which were at Nyekete's company, but the machines were not removed from the company's premises and were to be sold in-situ.

On January, 24, 2023, an auction was conducted by Plorific Auctions and Mhundwa was the highest bidder in buying the machines as he bought them for US$1 750.

After realising that the machines had been sold at a very low price, Nyekete negotiated with Mhundwa who then charged him US$6 000 for the machines.

Nyekete paid a total of US$3 200 to Mhundwa towards the purchase of the machines.

Nyekete later realized that the sheriff ordered Prolific Auction to conduct another auction since Mhundwa had not paid for the machines when he offered to pay them on the first auction.

On March 23, 2023, Plorific Auctions conducted another auction and sold the machines to another bidder.

Nyekete realized that Mhundwa had sold the machines when he was not the lawful owner of the machines since he never bought them from the auction.

He reported the matter to the police leading to the arrest Mhundwa. That led to a US$3 200 prejudice on the part of Nyekete and nothing was recovered.

Mangosi ordered Mhundwa to pay ZWL$50 000 as bail recognisance. He was ordered to appear once a week at the nearest police station and to reside at the given address until the matter was finalised.

He will appear in court on May, 8, 2023 for routine remand.