Africa-Press – Angola. Report on a scam, with the promise of houses in the Mayé-Mayé neighborhood, made by two women who, although they say they are also victims, are being pressured, with two other people, by 699 injured parties, to assume the return of more than 100 million kwanzas
“I’ve already thought about suicide.” The revelation comes from Eva Lopes, a 43-year-old bank employee, who, with three other people, one of whom is male, has been living, since 2019, an “authentic nightmare”, which, at the same time, It seems that there is still no end in sight.
The four, despite also being victims, as they claim, of a “million dollar scam”, are being strongly pressured, by 699 other injured parties, to assume the return of 101 million and 200 thousand kwanzas, collected by the quartet, for the purchase of houses, in the Mayé-Mayé housing project. A promise, which was later discovered to be false, made by three alleged fraudsters, one of whom was mentioned as an alleged employee of the Provincial Government of Luanda and considered the “brains” of the “criminal scheme” .
The four declare themselves innocent, but recognize that, because they believed in the promise of houses, they dragged 699 people into a fraud, which was only discovered after they had lost track of the alleged fraudsters, who are, to this day, still partly unclear.
The three alleged fraudsters never revealed their face to the 699 victims, a task that fell to each of the four people who said they were also victims of the “million dollar scam”.
The number of victims grew from four to 703, after the quartet passed the word to “close people”, including friends and relatives, who, in addition to having disbursed amounts to buy houses in Mayé-Mayé, “dragged” also , other people.
The four were approached, in the city of Sequele, by two of the three alleged fraudsters, residents of that new urbanization in the province of Luanda, with the information that a “close person”, who they said was an employee of the Provincial Government of Luanda (GPL) , would be looking for individuals interested in buying houses in the Mayé-Mayé housing project.
“As I have a brother and three cousins who were looking for their dream of owning their own home, I gave them the word”, says Eva Lopes, who says she spent 750 thousand kwanzas, to buy three houses, with the aim of rent, as a form of family investment.
The information that reached each person interested in buying houses in Mayé-Mayé, a social neighborhood located near the city of Sequele, was that each house would be sold for 500 thousand kwanzas and the amount could be paid in two installments.
There were people who paid to obtain just a single house. But there are several people who have raised the “bar”, giving values for the purchase of between two and six houses, with payment made, for some, in full.
Eva Lopes, mother of three children, all with special needs, thought that buying and then renting three houses would be a “good investment”, taking into account her desire to go and live abroad with her husband and children. children, for reasons of the children’s health.
Eva Lopes has no idea of the exact number of people she “involved” in the problem, because, as she highlighted, “I gave the floor to everyone who came to meet me.”
Eva Lopes arrived to speak with Jornal de Angola taken by Mena Andulo Gunge, her aunt, by affinity, and also a member of the quartet.
Cunning articulation
Mena Gunge, a teacher by profession, and Eva Lopes were initially unaware of the relationship between the two alleged fraudsters and residents of Sequele with the same alleged employee of the Provincial Government of Luanda and expressed interest in purchasing houses in Mayé-Mayé on different occasions.
Eva Lopes was a neighbor of one of the alleged fraudsters, in block 10 of the city of Sequele, while Mena Gunge, also from block 10, was a teacher for two children of the other alleged fraudster, this resident of block 8.
Mena Gunge’s interest in buying a house came to the attention of the mother of those two students, after the teacher found out about the information related to the sale of houses in Mayé-Mayé, through some teachers who had already given money to the lady. to obtain housing in the same neighborhood.
The two alleged fraudsters told the four people who said they were also victims that they did not need to refer them to anyone who expressed interest in buying houses in Mayé-Mayé, as long as the quartet received the amounts, a decision that, although it was already a big evidence of fraud, did not alert the four people.
So much so that not only did they receive, as they say, by hand and sometimes by bank transfer, the money from the 699 injured parties, but they also handed over the amounts collected to the two alleged fraudsters, through whom the money later reached the alleged employee of the Provincial Government of Luanda.
“There were times when I didn’t want to carry valuables, but she asked one of her sons to accompany me to the bank, to hand her the valuables”, recalls Mena Gunge, who says she expressed interest in buying a house in Mayé- Mayé, to offer to a daughter, separated from her husband and living in her mother’s house with two young children.
The relatively peaceful life came to a halt from the moment several injured parties began to put pressure on the quartet, which increased when it became known that the two alleged fraudsters had “sailed” from the city of Sequele, finding themselves, to this day, in part uncertain.
Result: one of the injured parties, who demanded the return of one million kwanzas, made a criminal report at the SIC-Geral, located in the Neves Bendinha neighborhood, leading to the delivery of a notification to Eva Lopes, as she was the person who received the money from the complainant, and Mena Gunge, for having given the amount to the mother of two of her students, the other alleged fraudster, information confirmed by Mena Gunge in the conversation.
At SIC-Geral, during the hearing, held separately, Eva Lopes and Mena Gunge were advised to return the money to the complainant, as the three alleged fraudsters were in an uncertain part, thus compromising the investigation of the truth, until they were located.
The advice was also extended to the two other members of the quartet, identified as Paulina Manuel Nicolau and Silvano Ferreira Tomás, in relation to the remaining injured parties, under penalty, in the event of non-compliance, of returning to the SIC, whenever a criminal complaint is made. by some injured party.
“We have been paying back so much money and my salary is no longer enough to support my children”, laments Mena Gunge, who wants to “get out of the mess” she has found herself in, revealing that she is afraid of being arrested for a crime which he reiterated that he had not committed.
A lawyer is working to defend the quartet and arrived on the scene after Eva Lopes and Mena Gunge were notified by SIC-Geral.
Detention and release
Two months after having been at SIC-Geral, Eva Lopes was arrested, in the municipality of Cacuaco, following a new criminal complaint, made this time by another victim, an officer from SIC-Cacuaco, who demanded the return of three million kwanzas.
After seven days of detention, in a cell at the Municipal Command of Cacuaco of the National Police, Eva Lopes was released one day after being presented to a bail judge, at Palácio Dona Ana Joaquina, where she waited, from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm , in turn to be heard.
A release warrant was issued by the guarantee judge after there was an agreement between Eva Lopes’ lawyer and the complainant’s lawyer, where the immediate delivery was guaranteed, as a condition for the defendant’s release, of one million and 500 thousand kwanzas, and the rest of the “debt”, which increased by 650 thousand kwanzas, as a monetary correction, must be paid off, in installments, by the end of October.
Eva Lopes has been disbursing, since July, 525 thousand kwanzas, to return the money to the complainant who was the reason for her arrest, ending up with none of her salary.
The arrest of Eva Lopes awakened the quartet to reinforce the need to demand, from the Justice Administration bodies, the carrying out of measures with a view to locating the three alleged fraudsters, in order to establish the truth.
“The SIC has instruments to locate the ladies”, says Eva Lopes, citing, as the author of the sentence, the guarantee judge of the 9th Criminal Section of the Luanda District Court, who returned her to freedom on the 23rd of June.
Lawyer José Domingos Fernandes, holder of professional license 1,626, declared, in a conversation (see boxes), that his constituents “had no idea that they were facing a crime of fraud”, having revealed that the documents, with the letterhead and stamp of the Provincial Government of Luanda, delivered to the injured parties by the three alleged fraudsters “are false”.
Eva Lopes has already returned money to 70 people and, so far, has spent close to 30 million kwanzas, an amount resulting from two bank loans and the sale of land and a house in the municipality of Viana.
“Unfortunately, we woke up late”, recognizes Eva Lopes, who says she is a person who has lost “the desire to go out” because, as she said, regretfully, she is “being seen as a fraudster, even by people she knows, when, in fact, , the real criminals remain in an uncertain part and with the money of all the injured parties.”
Mena Gunge’s marital life became even more complicated, since several injured parties began demanding, shouting, next to the door of her apartment, the return of the money she received.
Mena Gunge’s husband abandoned her because he was fed up with the constant presence of strangers at the door of the apartment.
To this day, Mena Gunge is resisting the pressure she suffers, daily, to sell her apartment, the only home she has, to pay what she does not consider a “debt”, as she did not end up, as she claims, with “any penny”. of the money he received from several injured parties.
The two ladies believe that their despair will only end and that they will have a normal life back when “the three culprits are located, arrested, tried and convicted.”
Process will have “disappeared” from SIC
Lawyer José Fernandes sent, on June 6th of this year, a document to the representation of the Attorney General’s Office at the SIC-General, requesting the opening of a criminal case against the three alleged fraudsters.
The lawyer highlighted, in the document, the need to locate the three alleged fraudsters, in order to establish the truth, which, in his conviction, is on the side of the four clients, because, he believes, “they were also scammed”.
A criminal case was opened by the PGR, with number 2022/23-B, and sent, on June 17th, through a letter with number 3,666, to the Directorate for Combating Crimes against Property of the SIC-Geral, where he received a new number (2,581/2023-03).
When trying to find out about the progress of the case, lawyer José Fernandes encountered two setbacks: despite having received a new number, when it was received by SIC-Geral on the 25th of June, the case was not registered in the entry registration book. of processes and has been lost.
The lawyer went to SIC-Geral five times and the answer he received was always the same: “the case has not yet been located.”
The lawyer admits, however, that, as he has not yet appeared, three months after joining the SIC-Geral, “the process may have been misplaced by someone, with the intention of not wanting it to progress.”
Forensic complaint
The lawyer presented, on September 22nd, to the main prosecutor at the SIC-Geral, a complaint, to open an investigation to find out “what happened to the document” at the Directorate for Combating Crimes against Property. waiting for the outcome of the investigation”, says the lawyer, admitting that “there may be an invisible hand that does not want the process to progress”.
In his conversation with this newspaper, the lawyer left the conviction that it will not be difficult to prove his clients’ innocence, for a very simple reason: “there is evidence.” According to José Fernandes, “part of the money was delivered by hand and another part transferred to the bank accounts” of the two ladies mentioned by their constituents as accomplices of the alleged employee of the Provincial Government of Luanda.
The lawyer defends the blocking of the bank accounts of the three alleged fraudsters and the need for SIC-Geral to know, as was done by SIC-Cacuaco, whether one of them is or was linked to the Provincial Government of Luanda.
As part of the line of defense he drew up to prove the innocence of his four clients, the lawyer learned that the three alleged fraudsters “are already known to the Criminal Investigation Service”, as their names had been “mentioned in other sales cases illegal housing in central areas of the province of Luanda.”
Waiting for the Police’s reaction
The names of the three alleged fraudsters are purposely not mentioned in this journalistic piece, as Press is awaiting a statement from the national spokesperson of the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC), chief superintendent Manuel Halaywa, to whom it was sent, more than a month ago, a questionnaire, with questions, most of them, related to the crime of falsifying documents of a different nature.
The names will be released if there is confirmation, by the SIC, of the existence of a criminal investigation, with the three ladies as suspects.
Jornal de Angola has already heard, however, the spokesperson for the Provincial Government of Luanda, Wilson dos Santos, who, after being informed of the reason for the contact, assured, in his response, by telephone, that, “in a preliminary assessment , we never had an employee with that name.”
This information collides with another, provided by lawyer José Fernandes, who said he had heard from a procedural instructor at the SIC in the municipality of Cacuaco that the Provincial Government of Luanda (GPL) had confirmed, as part of an investigation carried out by the SIC, that The lady in question was an employee of a GPL department, but had never been a member of any housing distribution committee.
Still on the subject, the GPL spokesperson, in his response, also declared that “the Provincial Government of Luanda does not have the autonomy, nor the competence, to distribute houses”.
The two alleged intermediaries and associates of the alleged employee of the Provincial Government of Luanda left the city of Sequele, after hearing from the quartet that most of the people they paid were already putting pressure on them, claiming tiredness in waiting for the promise of houses to be executed. in the Mayé-Mayé project.
Ignored requests
The two ladies always ignored the requests that the quartet made, so that the duo could get in touch with the people who made the payment, in order to reduce or remove the feeling of distrust that already existed.
Mena Gunge states that the alleged intermediary who received money from the victims never accepted the advice to meet with them, but, to make it appear that there was transparency in the entire process, he even took her to a place, in interior of Mayé-Mayé, where, as he claimed, the distribution of housing would be carried out in the following days.
The alleged fraudster disappeared, days later, from Sequele, and Mena Gunge later learned that she had moved to a house located close to the 11 de Novembro National Stadium, and her apartment, in the city of Sequele, may have been rented, a suspicion that Mena Gunge raised after having found “new residents”, from whom he heard that the lady “no longer lived in the apartment”.
Mena Gunge managed to locate and reach the new house where the lady was living. The alleged fraudster showed no interest in receiving Mena Gunge when she found out about her presence, an impression she got because she only left the house to meet her after.
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