Online Reporter
Yeukai Karengezeka-Chisepo
Court Correspondent
A GOLD buying deal appears to have cost a man about US22,000 after two Goromonzi men allegedly invented a robbery story to cover up the disappearance of the money and gold.
Tawanda Mutando (38) and Knowledge Mutando (32) appeared before Harare magistrate Ruth Moyo facing fraud charges.
They were granted bail.
The complainant, Terence Mashiri, is employed by Blue Stream Finance.
The State alleges that in September last year, Tawanda approached Mashiri with a proposal to go into partnership in a gold buying business.
To convince Mashiri that the business was legitimate, Tawanda allegedly showed him a permit purportedly issued by Fidelity Gold Refinery (Pvt) Ltd, authorising him to operate as a legal gold buyer.
The permit allegedly listed Knowledge as an agent.
According to the State, the arrangement was for Knowledge to buy gold while Tawanda handled the money and accounted for the gold bought.
Mashiri allegedly trusted the two men and handed Tawanda US$31,700 to invest in the business.
However, problems allegedly began when Mashiri later asked for some of his money back.
In January, he requested US$15,000 for personal use.
Two days later, Tawanda allegedly returned only US$5,500, leaving US$26,200 outstanding.
The court heard that Knowledge later told Mashiri that he had bought 136.82 grammes of gold for US$14,571.33.
He allegedly said he was bringing the gold to Harare for safekeeping.
But when Knowledge arrived in Harare, he allegedly claimed that he had been robbed and that both the gold and money had been stolen.
The alleged robbery story, however, would later come under scrutiny.
A month later, Mashiri allegedly discovered that Knowledge had not been robbed and had instead used the money to buy a residential stand and also build a house in Goromonzi.
The State alleges that Mashiri confronted the two at their residence.
It was during the confrontation, the court heard, that the two allegedly admitted that the robbery story had been fabricated.
They allegedly agreed to reimburse Mashiri and offered to surrender the residential stand as part-payment.
The State alleges that the deception resulted in Mashiri suffering an actual prejudice of US$21,891.
