US citizen John Duson deceived the government of Zimbabwe and fraudulently seized $ 40 million (and this is a significant part of the country's budget). This was reported by the BookDaily edition.
Duson arrived in Zimbabwe in October 2019, contacted the country's authorities and said that he was sent personally by Bill Gates to close a deal to service Microsoft products. He updated the operating system on the politicians' computers, installed Microsoft Office for them for free, and held a three-day seminar on getting a software update. All this, according to Duson, saved Zimbabwe from periodic payments for using Microsoft software and, in the future, would save the country's budget hundreds of millions of dollars.
Duson argued that the deal is very beneficial for Zimbabwe, in fact, it is Bill Gates' personal generosity towards a country whose economy is very weak. For his work, he received a symbolic 40 million US dollars, and the government was so grateful that it gave him a private plane, on which he flew back.
In May 2021, the Zimbabwean authorities received a new account from Microsoft, after which they contacted the company and learned that it did not send an employee to them to conclude any deals. They also found out that it was possible to replace Windows 7 with Windows 10 for free and without Duson's participation.
Now the police and Microsoft are looking for the cyber fraudster. According to some reports, he can comfortably live in one of the African countries.
Zimbabwe and some other African countries (Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Angola, Senegal, Togo, etc.) are known for sending out "letters of happiness", which for many residents are the main form of income. In these e-mails, the scammers inform the victim that she is entitled to a large payment, for example, inherited from a very distant relative. True, to obtain it, you need to pay for the services of a lawyer, who, of course, disappears after the money is transferred to him.
