By Rangarirai Shanyurai
Luck ran out for two Masvingo men who were in the habit of defrauding shopkeepers by creating fake EcoCash messages for payment when they were convicted of the crime at Masvingo Magistrates courts.
The two appeared before Masvingo magistrate Lynette Mudzingo facing three counts of fraud to the tune of US$103 on November 25.
Rodney Lwandi (30) from Mushagashe and Innocent Mutanharu (36) from Mucheke in Masvingo were arrested for allegedly defrauding two shopkeepers in Masvingo on different occasions of groceries worth US$103.
Lwandi at the time of arrest was performing community service for similar crimes he committed alone.
The duo pleaded guilty to the three counts of fraud.
It was the state’s case presented by Precious Takuva that on November 19, 2024 at 1300 hours, Lwandi and Mutanharu went to Mbudzi Business Centre in Masvingo and approached Ashley Chigovera (17) who worked at Bee Supermarket pretending to be genuine customers using Ecocash for payment.
Chigovera agreed to their request and they ordered groceries worth US$49 which included instant noodles, washing powder, cooking oil, concentrate drinks, tinned fish, baked beans, rice and spaghetti.
The duo created a fake Ecocash message and showed it to Chigovera as proof of payment before taking the groceries.
On the second count on November 20, the pair returned to Chigovera to purchase groceries worth US$33 including flour, washing powder, sugar, rice, noodles and spaghetti.
On the third count, Lwandi and Mutanharu went to Narichos Matongo (20) who was selling groceries at a tuck-shop at Mbudzi Business Centre. They pretended to be genuine customers. They ordered the groceries which include 4kg brown sugar, 4 kg rice, 2l cooking oil and 2kg washing powder worth US$20.
The pair made a fake Ecocash message and showed it to Matongo as proof of payment before taking the groceries.
Matongo later discovered that there was no money in her Ecocash wallet but failed to locate the fraudsters. The matter was reported to the police and investigations led to the arrest of the two and the stolen groceries were recovered.
