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Tendai Rupapa Senior Court Reporter
The director of Seeff Properties estate agency, who has been on the run after he allegedly swindled a potential client of close to $400 000 in a property deal, has been arrested. John Spicer (65) is believed to have been on the run for seven months before police managed to arrest him on Tuesday last week following a tip-off. His two accomplices in the matter arealready in remand.
Spicer, who is sick and under police guard, was last Thursday remanded on his hospital bed by magistrate, Mr Vakayi Chikwekwe.
He is facing charges of theft of trust property.
Spicer was remanded to October 22 for trial on $500 bail.
As part of his bail conditions, Spicer was ordered to report once a week at CID fraud once he was discharged from hospital, and to surrender his passport.
Prosecutor, Miss Sharon Mashavira, alleged that in October last year Spicer, acting in connivance with two accomplices, hatched a plan to steal from home seekers.
Pursuant to their plan, the trio, using their company Seeff Properties, advertised a property in a local paper that they had been mandated to sell by the owner, Alastair Robin Lindsay.
The complainant, Bernard Wekare, who was looking for a property to buy, responded to the advert and he was invited to view the property.
After Wekare expressed interest in buying the property, he was given an offer letter, which he signed and returned.
The court heard that the owner of the property Lindsay, accepted Wekare’s offer of $330 000. The trio prepared an agreement of sale which was signed by both parties.
The accused persons allegedly instructed Wekare to deposit the money into their company’s trust account held at Standard Chartered Bank. He agreed to deposit the money into the account on condition that the money would remain in that account until transfer of ownership to his name.
On November 1, the court heard, Wekare made a payment of $330 000 into the account. After a month he inquired about the title deeds to the property and the accused persons told him that there were ZIMRA documents that were still outstanding.
They later informed him that the ZIMRA process had been concluded and that their lawyers Coghlan, Welsh and Guest were ready to lodge the papers with the deeds office.
Wekare then paid $26 297 to the said lawyers for conveyance purposes. In December Wekare again asked the lawyers about the title deeds but was told they were unable to transfer the property since they were never given the money by the accused persons. The complainant later received a phone call from the accused persons advising him that they were unable to transfer the money to the lawyers because their banker, Tetrade Bank, was unable to transfer the money.
Wekare became suspicious and made a police report.
Investigations revealed that the money deposited by Wekare had been withdrawn by the trio and converted to their own use.
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