Duo loses US$53k in forex deal

A Harare duo was reportedly duped US$53 720 after a forex deal went sour, a Harare court heard yesterday.

The suspect who is accused of duping the two, Kudzanayi Chiganze, was not asked to plead when he appeared before Harare magistrate Judith Taruvinga.

He was granted $10 000 bail. He was ordered to reside at the address he supplied to the police and not to interfere with State witnesses.

The first complainant is Tafadzwa Gozho, and the second complainant is Francis Tondori.

The court heard that on October 5, the two wanted to purchase groceries from Tevason Investment and Surface Wilmar in Chitungwiza on behalf of Machara Mbuse of Mac Melse Distributors and Samson Murezi of Goodhope Investments.

Both complainants wanted to use the RTGS currency to buy groceries, but they only had US dollars hence they advised their friend, Charles Nyakabao, to find someone who could facilitate payment in RTGS for their items.

In the company of Nyakabao, they met Chiganze and he was in the company of Shingai Mazviwanza, who is still at large.

Chiganze indicated that they would facilitate the payment and the agreement was that they would send $2 924 092 to Tevason and would receive US$28 670 from Gozho.

They also agreed that they would pay $2 555 000 to Surface Wilmar and would receive US$25 050 from Tondori.

Chiganze and his accomplice showed the two proof of paythat they used their First Capital accounts to make the payments and received US$53 720

e complainants discovered the next day that the proof of payments they had been shown were fake and they subsequently made a police report leading to Chiganze’s arrest.