By Clara Wadi
Lilongwe Police have arrested Damiano Nkhoma, 42, for allegedly duping a Magistrate out of K400,000 through a fake Facebook estate agency scam. Nkhoma, who hails from Mtenje Village, Traditional Authority Machinjiri in Blantyre District, posed as a property agent on Facebook, claiming to have secured a house for rent in the capital city.
The victim, a Magistrate who was transferred to Lilongwe Magistrate Court in July last year, contacted Nkhoma after finding his details on Facebook. Nkhoma told the Magistrate that he had secured a house for him in Area 49 and asked for K250,000 for rentals, K100,000 as an agent fee, and K50,000 for logistics.
Unbeknownst to the Magistrate, Nkhoma was working with an accomplice who posed as the landlord of the apartment. When the Magistrate and his family arrived in Lilongwe with their household property, they found that both Nkhoma’s and the fake landlord’s phones were unreachable.
The Magistrate and his family were forced to seek temporary shelter at a relative’s house in town. Nkhoma and his accomplice have been on the run since July last year, but Nkhoma was finally arrested on Friday.
When detectives asked Nkhoma if he knew that the person he duped was a Magistrate, he admitted that he was aware of the victim’s profession from the start. Nkhoma is expected to appear in court next week to answer charges of Fraud Other Than False Pretenses. Area 3 Police detectives are still searching for Nkhoma’s accomplice.
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