Tarisai Machakaire
Herald Reporter
A Harare woman, who used credit cards to defraud OK Mart Wholesalers by buying beer worth US$25 000, has appeared in court charged with fraud.

Portia Madzamba was not asked to plead to the charge when she appeared before Harare magistrate Ms Anita Tshuma, who granted her US$200 bail.
Prosecutor Mr David Magwegwe alleges that sometime in May this year Madzamba, working in cahoots with a syndicate of credit card fraudsters, devised a plan to defraud OK Mart.

Pursuant to their plan Madzamba took information from other people’s credit cards and originated twin cards with the genuine card holders and produced a Standard Chartered Bank Visa card in her name and an FNB Visa Electron card with no names on it.
Armed with these cards Madzamba approached OK Mart on three different occasions and bought beer worth $25 361,15.

On the fourth occasion, on June 29 Madzamba went to OK Mart intending to buy more beer and approached a cashier at the shop.
Meanwhile, management at OK had been tipped off by Standard Chartered Bank, the Zimbabwean agent for VISA, that the three previous transactions conducted by Madzamba using Barclays Bank VISA Cards numbers 4901 1800 and 0160 7961 and FNB Electron VISA Cards number 4790 5710 and 0994 9930 were fraudulent transactions.

The cashier alerted her superior, who reported to the police leading to her arrest.