Hackers fleece NetOne during transition to ZiG

Two men from Kambuzuma, Harare, Martin Learnmore Gona (31) and Uwen Gonyora (34), were reported by NetOne (Pvt) Limited for allegedly hacking into its system and stealing over ZiG1 million last month during the transition from Zimdollar to ZiG. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe had recently replaced the Zimdollar with the ZiG due to hyper-inflation.

Following their arrest on charges of fraud and money-laundering, Gona and Gonyora spent the weekend in police custody and appeared before magistrate Dennis Mangosi on Monday. NetOne's regional loss control officer Takaitei Chitekwe represented the company during the court proceedings.

According to prosecutor Thomas Chanakira, Gona and Gonyora allegedly conspired to hack into the NetOne OneMoney wallet, fraudulently transferring ZiG1,119,438 to Gona's bank account by exploiting a glitch in the system during the ZWL$ to ZiG transition. They reportedly conducted 545 transactions using this method.

The State further claimed that the fraudulent funds were processed through Electronic Funds Transfer Corporation Zimbabwe, ZimSwitch, and EcoCash, funded from NetOne's Cellular OneMoney escrow account. As a result of these transactions, NetOne's OneMoney account funds were depleted, and the bank had to settle the transactions.

The court also heard that Gona and Gonyora allegedly converted the stolen funds into assets, although only ZiG695,940 has been recovered so far. They were remanded in custody pending a bail hearing scheduled for today.