Ex-BCC accountant wanted for $100k stands swindle
POLICE are looking for a former Bulawayo City Council accountant for allegedly swindling home seekers of $108 000 in a bogus residential stands scheme.
Freddy Ndabalime Dube (42) allegedly misrepresented to home seekers that he was selling residential stands, but failed to deliver after being paid.
Acting Bulawayo police spokesperson Assistant Inspector Abednico Ncube said Dube committed the crimes between January 2014 and June this year.
“He misrepresented to complainants that he had residential stands that he was selling in the western suburbs. He sold stands, drafted agreements of sale and collected payments and failed to avail the stands to the complainants. The complainants were defrauded of $108 860,” said Asst Insp Ncube.
He said Dube’s victims later reported the matter to the police but he had long disappeared.
“The complainants later discovered that they had been duped and reported the cases to the police.
“However, the accused had already disappeared and his whereabouts are not known,” Asst Insp Ncube said.
“Efforts to locate him have been fruitless hence the appeal to anyone with information on his whereabouts to contact the officer in charge ZRP CID Fraud Squad, Bulawayo Detective Chief Inspector Sibanda H on cell number 0772372/ 0712915307 or the investigating officer Detective A/Inspector Masenda on landline 09-78446 OR 0772747344/ 0713914946 or our toll free 110 or any nearest police station.”
Asst Insp Ncube said people who were defrauded in the same manner by Dube should make a report.
In February this year, police said 16 people in Bulawayo lost more than $232 000 to a land baron in a stands scam that saw some individuals being swindled of up to $15 000 each in the fake housing development project. Police said a city businessman Munyaradzi Mazenge, a director at Net Seven Real Estate, who is on the run, allegedly sold stands to people on land that did not belong to him.
Mazenge allegedly subdivided plot 12 in Willsgrove without the permission of the owner of the land and sold stands to different people.
Police said the businessman allegedly attached a fake subdivision permit number SDC 05/2015 as if the land was owned by his company and gave it to buyers as if the plan was approved.
He allegedly issued receipts to his clients and made them pay money in instalments of up to six months after promising them that the servicing of the land would be done within a year.