Two men from Kambuzuma, Harare, allegedly hacked into mobile network provider, NetOne (Pvt) Limited’s system and stole more than ZiG1 million last month during the change-over from RTGS to the new currency.
As reported by NewsDay, the suspects, Martin Learnmore Gona (31) and Uwen Gonyora (34) spent the weekend in police cells following their arrest on charges of fraud and money laundering.
They appeared before magistrate Dennis Mangosi on Monday, who remanded them in custody to this Thursday for a bail hearing.
NetOne was represented by its regional loss control officer Takaitei Chitekwe.
Prosecuting, Thomas Chanakira alleged that Gona and Gonyora connived and hacked into NetOne One Money wallet where they fraudulently transferred ZiG1 119 438 as phantom money to the former’s bank account.
The duo allegedly exploited a glitch that occurred on the NetOne OneMoney system during the ZWL$ to ZiG transition last month.
The court heard that the phantom money was then processed through Electronic Funds Transfer Corporation Zimbabwe, ZimSwitch and EcoCash being funded by NetOne Cellular OneMoney escrow account.
Gona and Gonyora allegedly made 545 transactions using the same method.
The State further submitted that after making the fraudulent transactions, the NetOne OneMoney account’s funds were depleted, leading to the bank settling the transactions.
Gona and Gonyora allegedly converted the proceeds to assets which are yet to be recovered, and only ZiG695 940 was recovered.
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