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Zvikomborero Parafini
TWO Kambuzuma men are facing fraud and money laundering charges after they allegedly hacked into the NetOne wallet and stole ZiG 1 million.
Martin Learnmore Gona and Uwen Gonyora appeared before Harare magistrate Dennis Mangosi over the weekend and are back in court today for bail considerations.
The complainant is Netone Cellular (Pvt) Ltd, being represented by Takaitei Chitekwe, the Regional Loss Control Officer.
The court heard that between May 10-13, this year, the duo hacked the NetOne wallet system and fraudulently transferred ZiG 1 119 438, using 545 transactions, into Gona’s OneMoney wallet.
They then made various money transfers of ZiG 816 000 into various accounts.
It is the State’s case that the ZiG 1 119 438 was phantom money, which was fraudulently created and transferred by the duo, exploiting a glitch in the Netone Cellular (Pvt) Ltd OneMoney system after reconfiguration from ZWL to ZiG currency.
The phantom money was then processed through the Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) Corporation Zimbabwe, ZimSwitch and Ecocash being supported or funded by Netone Cellular (Pvt) Ltd’s OneMoney Escrow account with FBC Bank.
After the process, all 545 transfers became genuine money, which the duo stole.
The duo converted the proceeds to assets, which are yet to be recovered.
The Netone Cellular (Pvt) Ltd OneMoney account’s funds were depleted by the raid, leading to FBC Bank settling the transactions.
Total actual prejudice is ZiG 1 119 438 and ZiG 694 940-00 was recovered after the wallets were frozen following the discovery of the offence.
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter