59 people have sued a man alleging to be a senior member of staff and a medical doctor under the United Nations (UN) and seven others for swindling them out of K6,760,245.00 in an online based village banking.
The 59 plaintiffs have asked the Lusaka High Court to order Prosper Sylva Ezeokah and seven others to pay them K6, 760,245.00 which was allegedly fraudulently collected from them as their investment contribution to an online village banking (Chilimba) system.
In a statement of claim filed in court, Davies Musonda and 58 others have also sued Rodrick Mulumbewa Musonda, Nelly Banda Zimba, Luyando Dyololo, Joseph Mwaba, Joshua Chikonko, George Chishimba and Chilufya Mulolo.
Mr Musonda and 58 others stated that Ezeokah and seven others advertised the business concept to them and assured them that the said business was an extremely good online village banking business.
They stated that they joined the defendant’s online business and invested different sums of money amounting to K6, 760,245.00.
The online village banking was based on the principles of Peer to Peer village banking/savings wherein links were shared through mobile phones and at the same, used to create the said Peer to Peer (P2P) online network business.
They stated that each member of the group was required to deposit a certain amount o money through the aforementioned village banking
group and the said members were then peered with others.
Musonda stated that the defendants fraudulently misrepresented to them that after investing a certain amount of money, every investor would
keep on receiving returns of 50 per cent of the investment each after 20 days which period was fraudulently increased to 25 days
and later 30 days.
“The defendants have since shut down the website and WhatsApp platforms, thereby, blocking some of the investors from downloading their accounts and evidence,” stated the 59 plaintiffs, the Zambia Daily Mail reports.