Let's Intensify Education On How Citizens Can Protect Themselves

Monitor Editor | Monday March 4, 2019 11:42

Just last week, the police released yet another warning to the public regarding fraudsters who use known tricks to swindle money from unsuspecting victims. An elderly woman from Manyana shared her story with The Monitor, of how two scammers parading as prophets managed to take half a million from her, over a period of five months.

  The police also revealed that yet another elderly woman was swindled of P198, 000, by fraudsters claiming that they will help her cast evil spirits. These are some of the oldest tricks in the book, but amazingly, these thugs still continue to make a kill at the expense of law-abiding citizens, who worked hard for their money. The police have repeatedly warned the public, even using their edutainment drama, Itshireletse to educate Batswana at large about these scammers, who seem to think the have the right to other people’s money and property. Most of these scammers are lazy individuals who don’t want to work for themselves, but rather prefer stealing from those who have work hard to secure a comfortable retirement. 

It is easy to blame, the victims, and point accusatory fingers at them for not being careful enough, but we have to be aware that not all of us will see things the same way. Fraudsters who one might say steal people’s money in a somewhat sophisticated way, as it normally does not involve any violence, usually get off with a slap on the wrist, hence many of them go back and do it to more and more people. In all the cases, a common occurrence is that victims are usually told not to breath a word of the transactions to anyone.

Why is that? Simply because, they do not want anyone to advise their target differently and risk not getting their way with the target. A true prophet will not tell the people they are prophesying to keep the prophecy a secret. These thugs are on a mission and they need to be stopped soon, because now they are showing a desperate trend of going after elderly people.