Francistown Principal Magistrate, Peggy Madandume, on Friday remanded in custody a 22-year-old man after an alleged series of fraud incidents in Francistown and Gaborone.
Jabulani Ngwenya, a Zambian national, was charged with fraud after he was nabbed at the Nokia Cellphone Warehouse in Nzano Shopping Centre, Francistown, where he is alleged to have scammed the shop of two Nokia 6500 cellphones to the value of at least P5 800.
Ngwenya is alleged to have, on March 22 2009, used a credit card to purchase two cellphones and, later, after he had left and the shop assistants tried to obtain payment from the bank account, found out that there was nothing in the account.
Nokia Cellphone Warehouse gave up and regarded the incident as a loss, as it was not easy to trace the accused.
It is alleged that during his first fraud incident at Nokia Cellphone, Ngwenya introduced himself as KJ Macintosh. The bank later found out that the credit card number belonged to a German national.
A few days later, Ngwenya again went back to the Nokia Warehouse where employees recognized him and called the police.
Ngwenya is linked to a series of other scams in Gaborone, where cellphones worth over P8 500 were allegedly obtained through the same credit card from the Gaborone Nokia Warehouse and Royal Wholesalers in Francistown where a different bank card was used.
He is also alleged to have defrauded Viva Computers of an undisclosed value of property, whereupon he identified himself as JP Khoza.
Ngwenya is said to be using a Zambian passport and a South African license.
The Prosecution applied that Ngwenya be remanded in custody since the case involves the crossing of international borders and also that local police await a report from Interpol while investigations are still in progress here in Botswana.
