Wife of school owner conned Sh600 million

Moshi. The wife of a secondary school owner in Same District has been conned more than Sh600 million by people, who posed as traditional doctors and assured her they had medicine to attract more students to the school.

For the medicine to be more effective, they told her that one of the students had to be killed, something the woman refused to accept.

The woman’s disagreement on the killing of one of her students made the tricksters find an alternative to it, which she eventually accepted to give them the money, which in the end amounted to Sh600 million. When contacted and asked him about the matter yesterday, the school director and owner (name withheld) fumed and queried why he was being asked about the issue that did not concern him. He switched off his cell phone. However, Kilimanjaro acting regional police commander Koka Moita confirmed the incident, saying the police had started investigation, including the con men’s syndicate. “It is not the school that was conned, but the wife of the school director as the conned money was loaned from a bank to develop the school,” Mr Moita said.

According to him, two people were arrested and questioned over the matter and were later freed on bail, but investigation was still in progress. The school is owned by the deputy principal of one of Dodoma’s universities, working for financial administration and the money was part of Sh900 million loaned from the bank. Information obtained yesterday from a close relative of the conned woman and the school said the conmen identified themselves as traditional “experts” from Singida Region. “It seems there was a person, who schemed a plan over the woman that she loved superstition, so when they told her that they would make medicine to attract many students to her school, she agreed,” it was hinted.

One source from the school claimed that the “experts” arrived at the school and arranged traditional procedures, whereby they told her that for the medicine to work effectively, one student must be killed superstitiously. However, the woman refused and instead she asked them to find an alternative and that was when the money issue came about and she gave out between Sh10 million and Sh50 million, in accordance with traditional treatment demands. “She was just like having been hypnotised because she gave out whatever amount she was told and the last time she gave out Sh50 million and that was when the con men vanished,” one of the school teachers said. However, as days passed by, the number of students did not increase and two weeks ago she lodged a case at Moshi Central Police Station, where an investigation sheet was also opened.

Efforts to get the conned woman for consecutive two days proved futile as her phone was calling and later it was switched off and a text sent to her was never responded.