Mushambi was
called to the witness stand before Harare magistrate Francis Mapfumo and told
the court that he was engaged to be a brand ambassador but wasn’t part of the
scheme.
“I’m a comedian
who does advertising for brands on social media, I was on holiday in South
Africa when I was called by a team from E Creator.
“I can’t say a
specific name of the person who called me
because it was a team and they
wanted me to do a live stream for their brand activation event.
“They asked me
to bring other influencers and I engaged Madam Boss, I also invited my family
members and friends to join in the scheme but we didn’t manage to withdraw our
money after the system crashed.
“The money I
lost was in the thousands,” he said.
Mushambi
however failed to link the two suspects, Zhao Jiaotong and Billy Thomas Syedou
to the offence because he never dealt with them directly.
The State
believes the two are the masterminds of the Ponzi scheme.
It is alleged
that Jiaotong and Syedou registered their company styled E-Creator Economic
Commerce Private Limited in January this year.
The company was
housed at Joina City in the Harare CBD.
They went on to
launch the company as an online e-commerce operator.
They went on to
misrepresent to their investors that they would enjoy monthly returns depending
on the mounts invested and thousands of Zimbabweans flocked to join investing
up to US$1000 through Ecocash on the numbers they provided.
On top of
appointing brand ambassadors Madam Boss and Mama Vee, they also employed
various agents in major towns and cities throughout the country in order to
market the business.
On July 3, some
of the subscribers encountered challenges in accessing their funds and
approached the company for clarifications.
They allegedly
assured the subscribers that it was a system upgrade that was affecting access
to their funds and further advised them that the situation would normalize in
due course.
On July 5 2024,
subscribers were shocked to realize that E-Creator Electronic Commerce [Private
Limited had actually sent a notice on their website that they are no-longer
operating, and they posted a picture of Zhao Jiaotong as the one who taken
their money and absconded to China.
They went to
the offices and discovered that they had been closed permanently.
The trial
resumes on October 31. B Metro
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