Suspected land barons were yesterday dragged to court charged with fraud involving US$16 000.

Lovemore Chinobva 54, and Enos Gwangwadza, 23, were not asked to plead when they are appeared before Harare magistrate Barbra Mateko.

Allegations are that on June 2, the complainant saw an advertisement in a local newspaper to the effect that Chinobva was selling a residential stand in New Marlborough measuring 2222 square meters for USD25 000.

On Jun 13, he saw again an advert that the same stand was being sold for USD19 000.

The complainant got interested and called on the supplied contact number and Chinobva confirmed that he was the owner of the stand and agreed to sell the stand at $16 000.

Chinobva called him and asked to meet at Chicken Inn Msasa to sign the agreement of sale upon payment of the stand, the complainant was suspicious as to why Chinobva wanted to meet him outside the premises fearing that he may be robbed so he informed the police.

On June 25, the meeting was held at the agreed place but complainant was in the company of ununiformed police where Gwangwadza produced the title deeds for the stand which he said he would release upon payment.

The complainant signed the agreement of sale and made the payment then were arrested as they had produced a fake title deed, agreement of sale, duplicate of the real stand owner’s national ID who was tracked and confirmed that he wasn’t selling his stand.