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Brenda Zinyuke, Court Reporter

A MAN from Bulawayo has appeared in court for allegedly defrauding a supermarket of groceries worth over RTGS$20 000 by faking EcoCash payments on separate occasions.

Bruce Chafa (27) of Tshabalala suburb allegedly duped Reekays Supermarket whose specific location was not given in court, using fake EcoCash payment messages purporting to have paid for goods.

Chafa was not asked to plead to fraud when he appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Ms Nomasiko Ndlovu.

He was remanded in custody to January 2 next year.

According to court papers, sometime between August and September this year, Chafa went to the employees at the supermarket with fake EcoCash messages purporting to have paid for some groceries.

“The employees allowed the accused person to take the groceries he claimed to have paid for,” read the papers.

“The accused person repeatedly used the same method to dupe the same company of goods of various amounts on separate occasions.”

The matter came to light sometime in September when the company was checking its financial books and they discovered that the written purchases on the book were not tallying with the amount reflecting on the cellphone used for Ecocash transactions.

The matter was reported to the police and investigations were carried out leading to Chafa’s arrest.

The company lost groceries worth RTGS$29 100.-@zinyuke98