South Sudanese national remanded over gold scam

By Ruth Anderah.

Three people including a South Sudanese national Lawrence Malong and a one Mike Lota Okitalunyi a Congolese have further been sent on remand to Luzira prison on charges relating to a botched gold deal in which an Ethiopian businessman lost 1.9 million US dollars.

The 2 suspects are jointly charged with a Ugandan Businessman Thaddeus Zikusoka with charges of obtaining money from Dessie Wagnew by falsely pretense promising to sell to him 150kg of gold whereas not.

Wagnew who resides in South Africa but flies into the country to follow his case has explained that he met Malong through a friend who told him that he had a gold trading license and that he could help him export gold to Dubai and Hong-Kong markets.

However in February 2017, after advancing Malong money to facilitate the transfer of 1Kg of Gold, he informed him that it would be too expensive to ship only a few kilos of gold to Dubai and instead advised Wagnew to shoot up to 150kgs for which he also paid the 1.9m US dollars.

Wagnew says the group made him lose more money by flying to Hong-Hong to wait for the gold which they knew they never had and that is when he realized he and been conned.

Now the case has been adjourned until 4^th April 2019 for further hearing.

Written by David Kugonza