BY DESMOND CHINGARANDE
A CHITUNGWIZA man on Saturday appeared at the Harare Magistrates’ Court charged with unauthorised use or possession of debit cards after he allegedly cloned bank debit cards for CABS account holders and transferred a total of $69 000 before he converted the money to his personal use.
Donald Shorai Jima (29), of Zanuyotonga Road in Zengeza, appeared before magistrate Barbara Mateko, who remanded him in custody to today for his bail application.
The complainants in the matter are Amanda Zietsman, John Clark and Valentine Vincent Oldfield, who are all CABS account holders.
It is the State’s case that during March 27 this year, Jima and his accomplices, who are still at large, hatched a plan to clone the complainants’ bank debit cards and they made some balance enquiries into Zietsman’s bank account and discovered that it had over $9 000.
The State alleges that the next day, Jima and his accomplices went to Mahusekwa business centre and approached Wellington Mushonga, who owns two Agribank point-of-sale machines and they swiped a total of $9 000 from Zietsman’s account into fraudulently registered EcoCash numbers.
The gang also made several purchases at Chikwana Hotel, where they purchased expensive beers and also at Millennium Bar and Guzha Chikwana Bar.
It is further alleged that on April 13, Jima and accomplices cloned Clark’s bank card details and they went to one Saul Karimbika, who operates a hardware at Chikwana and swiped $4 000 to purchase agricultural inputs.
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After that, they purchased expensive wines at Chikwana Hotel.
On the same day, the gang allegedly cloned Oldfield’s account and they made several purchases at Kebab Drive Inn Night Club, Paramount Bar and Karimbika’s Hardware, totalling $3 300.
The court further heard that on April 15, the accused person together with his accomplices went to Mahusekwa and again approached Mushonga and swiped a total of
$9 000 into their fraudulently registered EcoCash numbers.
Jima was arrested on April 26 after he went to Karimbika’s Hardware with printouts from EcoCash to confirm that he had not received the $500 which was still outstanding.
The State said in all the transactions, nothing was recovered.
Flossy Jambanja appeared for the State.
