When technology helps you, then helps to ruin you

Thousands of people desperate for solutions for their spiritual and physical health troubles have fallen victim to a systematic, heartless and rather cocky swindler posing as famed KwaZulu-Natal traditional healer Gogo Bathini Mbatha.

The traditional healer’s popularity has been on the rise in the past few years, with his regular culture, rituals and health YouTube channel boasting at least 50 000 subscribers and attracting up to 500 000 viewers.

Mbatha uses the platform to give advice on a variety of African spirituality, healing and ancestral rituals and supplies a cellphone number in case a person wants to consult him.

As his popularity soared, a swindler saw an opportunity and swooped to fraudulently port the number Mbatha posted on his channel for his bookings and assumed his identity.

When a person calls the number on Mbatha’s channel, it goes straight to the swindler, who would pretend to be Mbatha and then pressure, or even coerce, the potential victim to deposit money into their bank account.

Last week, unaware of the scam, Sizwe Mkhwanazi, an unemployed North West father called Mbatha’s number after watching one of his YouTube videos and explained the problem he needed help with.

He told the person on the other end he thought was Mbatha that he needed to consult him but the man insisted that he deposit R5 000 into his back account before coming.

Desperate for help, Mkhwanazi approached a loan shark for R6 000 and deposited the R5 000 into the account provided by the man.

It was only after had travelled almost nine hours from Rustenburg to Mbatha’s Empangeni, Kwazulu-Natal, home that he discovered that he had been conned.

There are at least thousands of others like him, including a Kwazulu-Natal man who lost R70 000 to the swindler. What is painful in this whole saga is that the swindler continues with his scheme, although this matter has been reported to the service provider.

This is the reason Mbatha believes the swindler was working with someone at the service provider and told how the swindler called him, using the same number he has stolen, to tell him that there was nothing he could do about it.

According to the traditional healer, his attempts to report the matter to the police have also failed as he was told the case must be opened by actual victims.

He has explained that this could only be the work of a very sophisticated syndicate working in cahoots with someone inside, because he has reported the matter to the service provider but nothing has been done.

While the service provider drags its feet in sorting out the matter, thousands of poor and desperate people continue to fall prey to this thief.

Though some of the victims understand when Mbatha explains to them, some are not so understanding and have threatened his life.

Their argument is that this has been going on for over a year now and surely he could have done something about it by now.

Ironically, it is the same platform that has catapulted Mbatha to fame and fortune that has now become the source of pain, sorrow and loss for thousands of people – and like an albatross around his neck.

Sipho Mabena pictured at The Citizen, 16 July 2019. Picture: Tracy Lee Stark

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