The founder of E-Creator, Zhao Jiaotong, allegedly operated 50 EcoCash sim cards to run the Ponzi Scheme.
Jiaotong and his accomplices Trymore Tapfumaneyi and Justin Kuchekenya appeared before Harare magistrate Marewanazvo Gofa on Monday where the investigating officer, Brighton Samaneka, testified.
Samaneka, who has been a police officer for the past 23 years, urged the court to deny them bail as he believed Zhao to be a flight risk. He said:
Subscribers were sending the money via Ecocash to over 50 numbers that were being operated by Jiaotong.
He was the brainchild of the E-Creator scam. He came into the country on February 3 and on February 7, Tapfumaneyi and Kuchekenya registered the company, each with a 50 percent shareholding.
Prosecutors alleged that Jiaotong was the brainchild of the scheme, although his name does not appear as a director on the company’s paperwork…
As the investigating officer in this matter, I’m strongly opposed to the granting of bail.
I’m alive to the fact that bail is a right unless there are compelling reasons.
I believe Zhao is a flight risk, I can submit with authority that he is a high flight risk because when he was arrested on 12 July, he was on the verge of skipping the country.
It’s apparent that his intention was to place himself beyond the jurisdiction of this court.
We managed to seize a stamped passport and boarding passes from him and that alone is clear testimony that we are dealing with an accused person who’s a high flight risk.
The passport was seized when he was about to board a plane at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport and that was going to be the end of this case.
The court should bear in mind that he’s still sitting on fraudulently obtained money which gives him the capacity to do anything at any time.
Samaneka also said Tapfumaneyi and Kuchekenya should remain in custody because the people they had allegedly duped were angry and determined to seek revenge.
The court heard that Zhao, Tapfunaneyi, Kuchekenya and their accomplices, Billy Thomas Syedou, Abraham Mutambu and others still at large, registered E-Creator Economic Commerce Private Limited in February as an online e-commerce operator.
They went on to defraud people, saying investors would enjoy monthly returns depending on the amounts invested.
Thousands of Zimbabweans then rushed to invest money via Ecocash on the numbers provided by E-Creator.
However, in early July, E-Creator published a notice on its website indicating that it was no longer operating after subscribers had encountered challenges in accessing their funds.
The “company” posted a picture of Zhao, saying he had taken their money and fled to China.
It is alleged that the Ponzi scheme cost investors more than US$1 million in total.
More: Pindula News