Did Zimbabwean mastermind £3,2m church swindle?

Did Zimbabwean mastermind £3,2m church swindle?

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By Staff Reporter

A ZIMBABWEAN man has stood trial in Britain, accused of leading a gang of bible-waving conmen who swindled fellow Seventh Day Adventist church goers of a staggering £3,2 million.

Lindani Mangena, 24, is accused of recruiting three more men -- Dean Hinkson, 29, Curtis Powell, 31, and Jordan Huie, 25 – in the scam in which church members were persuaded to invest in bogus schemes, some of which promised returns of as much as 25 times the original investments.

Mangena denies charges including fraudulent trading and money laundering. The other three deny breaking financial rules and the trial continues.

The Southwark Crown Court heard on Tuesday how Mangena and his gang funded a life of “wild extravagance” over a period of seven months, buying a £23,000 Mercedes and a £26,000 BMW.

The gang flew first class to the Middle East and put down a deposit on an apartment worth £4.75 million, the court heard.

The four men tricked worshippers into believing that they were City traders. The money flooded in so quickly the gang was said to have installed a cash-counting machine in the City office they rented as a front. The premises were guarded by “heavies” to keep worried investors away, the court heard.

Mangena is said to have told his victims that he was skilled as a spread trader on the stock exchange. In reality, he invested only £12,000 of the money he conned – and he lost half of it.

The Zimbabwean, who lives in Romford, East London, is said to have set up the operation soon after dropping out of university in the summer of 2003. The fraudulent trading and money laundering is said to have occurred between July 2003 and March 2004.

Stephen Winberg, for the prosecution, told Southwark Crown Court: “The aim, as with all frauds, was to get victims to part with their money. The victims were told that money that was obtained from them was going to be invested on their behalf. It was not. Hardly any of it was invested.

“Instead, large chunks of it were spent on renting and buying multimillion-pound flats, Mercedes and other expensive cars, travel to luxury hotels, and other luxury spending for the benefit of the man behind the scheme and his friends. That is what this case is about: ‘Give us the money’.”

Winberg said that the jurors might be surprised at how easily the victims had handed over their money.

“Most of them had worked hard for it, often in lowly paid jobs, but the fraud had two main hooks to pull the money in,” he said.

“First, the victims were promised staggering rates of return. The rates of return were so attractive that people tended to suspend their judgment. Most of the victims were members of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, and so was the man behind the fraud and the other defendants who sit with him in the dock.

“You may think, as you hear the evidence, that the victims were much more ready to believe what they were told because it came from members of the same tight-knit religious community.

“They naively accepted the absurd claims of the returns that they could make on the money they gave to the defendants, and their suspicions were not aroused by the absence of things like receipts that you might expect when you invested money.

“The man behind the scheme, being a member of this religious community, knew that he would be trusted because of his shared background, and took ruthless advantage of this.”

The court was told how, in October 2003, Mangena and Huie moved into a £650-per-week apartment. Soon afterwards, Hinkson moved into the same block, having lived in a council flat. The next month he bought a £23,000 Mercedes and Powell paid £26,000 for a BMW.

The court was told that, in December 2003, Hinkson, Huie and Mangena flew first class to Abu Dhabi, staying at a five-star Sheraton hotel. In the same month Mangena put down a deposit of £15,000 to reserve a £4.75 million apartment.
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