TWO men appeared at the Harare Magistrates’ Court yesterday
facing fraud allegations after they cloned bank debit cards of unsuspecting
clients before spending the cash on betting.
The suspects, Nyaradzai Wisdom Mazviwanza (31) and
Archiford Jiri (33), were not asked to plead when they appeared before
magistrate Josephine Sande, who remanded them to September 21on $300 bail each.
The complainants in the matter were cited in court papers
as Morris Mkwate from Zimpapers, Tsitsi Chichaya, a student residing in India,
and a Mutatis Software Engineering director who was not named.
It is the State’s case that on March 18 this year,
Mazviwanza, Jiri and two other female accomplices allegedly cloned Mkwate’s
National Building Society (NBS) account debit card and went to African Sun
casino at the Harare Agricultural Showground where they purchased casino tokens
worth $1 500 using the card.
The four allegedly used $300 tokens for betting before they
requested for a token refund of $1 200, which was then deposited into
Mazviwanza’s Standard Chartered Bank account which he later withdrew.
The State alleges the offence came to light when Mkwate
received a balance notification message from his bank informing him of the
fraudulent transaction.
Using the same modus operandi, on May 29 this year, the
suspects cloned Chichaya’s debit card and went to Montclair Casino in Highlands
where they purchased betting tokens worth $600 and used $200 tokens before
requesting for a token refund of $400, which was paid in cash.
The State further alleges that the suspects cloned a
Mutatis Software Engineering director’s debit card and on August 2 went on to
purchase betting tokens worth $3 000 at Montclair Casino whilst the complainant
was in Ethiopia.
On August 26, detectives who were investigating the matter
arrested Mazviwanza in Budiriro, and he was allegedly found in possession of a
point-of-sale machine, after which he implicated Jiri.
All the suspects were captured on CCTV while transacting
with the cloned cards.
Linda Gadzikwa appeared for the State. Newsday
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