Robert Mugabe Caught In $500 Billion Oil Con

ROTINA Mavhunga, who goes by the alias of Nomatter Tagirira is the medicine woman who conned Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe’s government out of about US$1m.

Mavhunga convinced minsters that she could tap diesel fuel from a rock. And she did. Only, it was a trick. No, really.

Mavhunga found an abandoned fuel tank in the bush near the northern town of Chinhoyi and filled it with diesel fuel. Then she attached a pipe to the outlet and concealed it at the top of a rock.

Somehow she convinced government officials to attend the rock and pay witness to her “discovery.” Registrar-general Tobaiwa Mudede, was named as “an interested party” in the fraud.

Mudede, who has run the country’s elections since 2000, had supplied 125 litres of diesel, which the mystic poured down the rock, the judge revealed.

When Mavhunga went on the run from police, she was hidden and fed by Mudede, Mugova said.

While finding his behaviour was “disturbing” the judge said he was not convinced Mudede was acting out of self-interest.

At a signal – “mugs away” – her aide opened the tap and the refined diesel would ooze down the rock. Gasps aplenty.

Mugabe heard of the magic rock. A cabinet “task force” investigated the wonder and Mavhunga was given money and cars. But it would never last.

To a court, then, and Judge Ignatius Mugova finds Mavhunga guilty of defrauding the government of about US$1m - 500 billion dollars in the now disused Zimbabwean dollar - and of “misrepresenting to a public official“.

The judge says many people who visited Mavhunga’s “shrine” were “gullible” and “frightened“, removing their shoes in the presence of the mighty rock.

This aura of mystery was not aided by Mavhunga’s growling in the dock and faking a trance.

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Posted: 28th, July 2009 | In: Money Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink