A ZIMBABWE National Road Administration (Zinara) tollgate cashier appeared at the Harare Magistrates Court yesterday facing a $16 million theft charge involving point-of sale machines.
Tongai Clive Shonhiwa (34) appeared before Dennis Mangosi, who granted him $50 000 bail and remanded the matter to December 12.
The complainant is NetOne Cellular; (Pvt) Ltd, represented by its fraud manager Munyaradzi Hove.
Allegations are that from July 2022 to date, Zinara received point-of-sale machines from various banks with NetOne post-paid data lines for use at tollgates across the country.
On dates unknown to the prosecution, but during the same period, Shonhiwa unlawfully removed several post-paid NetOne data sim cards from point-of-sale machines under his charge and gained access to NetOne data recharge platforms.
It is alleged that the accused would then sell the post-paid data lines to unsuspecting clients claiming that the lines had several benefits and packages including unlimited data recharge and talk time.
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During the same period, the accused sold two data lines to Courage Nemaisa for US$500.
Nemaisa then gave one of the paid lines to Talent Taunezvi and the two used these lines to transfer data bundles to several clients at a fee.
NetOne detected the scam and reported the matter to police, leading to the arrest of Nemaisa and Taunezvi who then implicated Shonhiwa.