ZBC News reports that the streets of Harare are awash with fake bonds notes being traded on the foreign currency black market by fraudsters.
The fraudsters are reportedly duping unsuspecting people of thousands of US dollars every day around the Eastgate Mall area in central Harare.
The report reveals how the syndicate operate:
This investigation found out that the alleged fraudsters follow their victims to nearby supermarkets and offer to buy their groceries using point of sale machines.
In this way, they retain the fake currency and await their next victim.
The source of the fake bond notes remains a mystery but there are hints that it’s an underground operation being conducted in the avenues area involving both local and foreign nationals.
A law announced by the government early this year on illegal foreign currency trading appears to be losing in weeding out the illegal forex dealers whose numbers have ballooned over the last 2 months.
The fear now is that the fake currency rackets are triggering inflation and further weakening the bond note which is now trading at to 1:9 on the parallel market.
-ZBC News
