News / National
Zimbabwe pastor defrauds South Korean counterpart
10 Feb 2023 at 05:40hrs | Views
A LOCAL pastor appeared at the Harare Magistrates Court yesterday facing a fraud charge after he allegedly sold a non-existent church stand to his South Korean counterpart who is into missionary work in Zimbabwe.
Blessing Bentura, a pastor at the New Creation in Christ Ministries, appeared before magistrate Stanford Mambanje and was remanded in custody to February 28 pending finalisation of investigations.
The complainant is Dong-Chan Jun of Paul Missionary International.
Allegations are that sometime in May last year, the complainant approached Bentura enquiring on how he could acquire a stand to build a church in the Hopley area.
Bentura offered to assist and introduced the complainant to Tendai Katsaira who is already on remand on the same matter.
It is alleged that on May 21, 2022, Bentura acting in connivance with Katsaira showed the complainant Stand Number 7358 measuring 5 000sqm, which Katsaira said was valued at between US$10 000 and US$12 000.
Bentura demanded a down payment of US$6 000.
The complainant then paid the money in tranches of US$500 on June 11, US$1 900 on June 17 2022, US$1 900 on July 9 2022 and US$1 700 on July 13 2022.
Acting in connivance with Katsaira, they fraudulently generated some receipts purporting to be development fee from the evaluation and estates division of City of Harare for all the money received from complainant.
They later became evasive, resulting in the South Korean approaching the City of Harare to enquire about the status of the land.
He was told the stand was non-existent, resulting in him filing a police report.
Blessing Bentura, a pastor at the New Creation in Christ Ministries, appeared before magistrate Stanford Mambanje and was remanded in custody to February 28 pending finalisation of investigations.
The complainant is Dong-Chan Jun of Paul Missionary International.
Allegations are that sometime in May last year, the complainant approached Bentura enquiring on how he could acquire a stand to build a church in the Hopley area.
Bentura offered to assist and introduced the complainant to Tendai Katsaira who is already on remand on the same matter.
It is alleged that on May 21, 2022, Bentura acting in connivance with Katsaira showed the complainant Stand Number 7358 measuring 5 000sqm, which Katsaira said was valued at between US$10 000 and US$12 000.
Bentura demanded a down payment of US$6 000.
The complainant then paid the money in tranches of US$500 on June 11, US$1 900 on June 17 2022, US$1 900 on July 9 2022 and US$1 700 on July 13 2022.
Acting in connivance with Katsaira, they fraudulently generated some receipts purporting to be development fee from the evaluation and estates division of City of Harare for all the money received from complainant.
They later became evasive, resulting in the South Korean approaching the City of Harare to enquire about the status of the land.
He was told the stand was non-existent, resulting in him filing a police report.
Source - Newsday Zimbabwe
