John Smoke appeared before Harare Magistrate Josephine Sande, last week after he allegedly defrauded a Harare man of over $10 000 in a foreign currency deal. Sande granted smoke $150 bail.
According to the state, Smoke and his three accomplices who are still at large, allegedly represented to an unnamed complainant that they were selling USD10 000 in US$100 denominations. After agreeing on an exchange rate, the complainant gave the alleged fraudsters $10 503 in bond notes. In exchange, he received what was supposed to be a wad of USD10 000 in one hundred dollar denominations. After the suspects had left, the complainant discovered that he had been duped as the money he had been given had a single USD100 on top. The other 97 notes were all one dollar bill denominations meaning he received $197 in total.
The incident occurred on September 7 this year at Nhaka House, corner Angwa and George Silundika Street in the capital
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