Thamaga Woman Scammed Of P3,000
Pini Bothoko | Monday June 8, 2020 15:26
Since last year the scammers have been targeting women who drive expensive cars in Gaborone prompting cautionary messages targeted at women. As a result women are being warned to watch out for the fraud syndicate that has taken huge sums of money from the victims.
The warning comes after a 56-year-old woman of Ga-Matsila ward in Thamaga was recently swindled money amounting to P3,000. Last year Mogoditshane police station recorded a number of similar cases in which women were swindled thousands of pula.The criminals target unsuspecting women who they con into disclosing their financial details, before emptying their bank accounts. The fraudsters’ cover story is that they are police officers with the Criminal Investigation Department and then they deceive their victims into robbing them.
Thamaga Police station commander, superintendent Moses Kwarare revealed the scammers planted a ‘large sum of money’ wrapped in a plastic next to the woman’s car in order to strike a conversation with her.
“The fraudster approached the old woman when she was from the post office. When opening her car a young man stopped and alerted her of the large sum of money by her car. The victim said when insisting that the money was not hers the lad asked for a lift to the bus rank,” he said. Kwarare added that by offering such a person a lift one would have fallen into the crook’s trap. He said on the way as a way of winning the victim’s trust the fraudster would offer to share the money with her before dropping it off. Narrating the scammers’ modus operandi, he said on the way the fraudster received a ‘phone call’ and claimed the network was bad and pleaded with the woman to stop the car.
When she pulled over, another car stopped right behind them. Two men alighted from the car and approached the woman claiming to be police officers on the trail of stolen money.
“She said the young man admitted to being in possession of the money as he picked it up after falling from the old woman’s bag,” Kwarare revealed.
“They pretended to be arresting the man and instructed the old woman to disclose her bank details, including the pin numbers so that they could check if there has been any transaction between the two. They even instructed her to switch off her phone.” Kwarare said thereafter the fraudsters went to withdraw all of the money in the victim’s account. He said investigations into the matter were ongoing to locate the suspects who are still at large.
“Mogoditshane Police Station recorded a number of similar cases last year in which women driving expensive cars were approached in shopping malls and swindled out of large sums of money. It looks like the same fraudsters have invaded Thamaga,” Kwarare said. He warned women to be cautious at all times to avoid falling prey to the fraudsters. He further cautioned women not to offer lifts to strangers and to always involve a third party, especially security officers at the malls or contact the police if they find themselves in such situations.
In addition, Kwarare pleaded with women not to trust strangers with their money even if they claim to be police officers.