Fred Chirwa (not his real name) had just retired from a full time job as a locomotive driver at Zambia railways in Kitwe. He got his retirement package of Fifty five million Zambian kwacha (K55, 000,000).The separation package that he was paid was a net balance after the company deducted the amount for a company house that he bought under the home ownership policy that was introduced by the Zambian government in the early 1990’s to sell institutional houses to sitting tenants.
He had never done business before. He was unsure of what business to do with his money. He had a strong desire to make money and get rich quick. He seemed so desperate to make it big, such that he kept on asking for advice from who ever he found at his usual drinking place in Nkana east. His favorite drinking place was Muluka bar and restaurant, situated at the junction of Chiwala and Central streets.
He was always inclined to offer a beer to other patrons, targeting those who had made money through illegal deals of buying and selling copper cathodes and copper concentrates to Chinese companies dotted around Kitwe’s heavy industrial area. Fred was hoping to gather more information about the illegal business. He was in a hurry to become a member of this team of the “big” guys in Kitwe.
One day, while sipping his favorite Mosi gold lager, an opportunity to make a "quick buck” presented itself. It was an opportunity he was later to regret. Three smartly dressed middle aged men approached him with a business proposal. He asked them to follow him outside to discuss it in the privacy of his car, a Toyota Hilux surf which he had parked outside.
They introduced themselves just by their first names as James, Mawela and Kilonga. James was carrying a briefcase. He put the briefcase on his laps and opened it. It was full of neatly packed paper the size of one hundred dollar bills, which was in neat bundles and sealed in plastic.
James pulled out one bundle and showed it to Fred. He tore the plastic covering the bundle and pulled one leaf of paper that was coated in a black ink-like substance. The paper leaf was the size and shape of a one hundred United States dollar bill.
Then Mawela who had been quiet most of the time, began to speak in Bemba and said,
”Bamudala iyi balemulanga ni pure dollar, nomba bali subako umuti. Ni black dollar. Eyo bâle folesha ama soldier ku Kuwait mu 1991. Bâlesubako umuti paku cita transport elyo basamfya ngayafika.”
This, translated in English, means: "Big man, what my friend is showing you is a real dollar. It has been disguised using a special chemical. It is then known as the black dollar. This is the money that was being paid to the American soldiers during the Gulf war in Kuwait in 1991 They used to coat it with a black powder or ink during transportation and it was cleaned using another chemical to reveal its features upon arrival.
Mwela continued by saying that he and James had brought in Kilongo, a Congolese national, who was good at removing the black chemical coating on the bills, using a special chemical solution in order to reveal the features on the bills. He asked Kilonga to demonstrate.
Kilonga took out a small bottle which was almost the size of a bottle commonly used to package ear drop medicines. He took out five black dollar bills and poured the solution on the five bills. Within three minutes, the black chemical coating was cleaned and five brand new dollar bills were revealed. Kilonga handed over the five bills to Fred and asked him to examine them to confirm whether they were genuine or not. They left the bills with Fred and told him that they would come back to meet him the following day after he had examined and confirmed that they were real dollar bills. They told him that he was free to spend the money once he had confirmed it as real.
Fred was so excited at the prospect of making it big. He went to his bank at Kaunda Square and presented the bills to a teller in order to sell them. The teller examined the bills using the currency examining machine and passed them as genuine. He gave Fred one million and six hundred thousand Kwacha, an amount equivalent to five hundred dollars at that time. Immediately after discounting his dollar bills into Kwacha, he left the bank and phoned James and his friends to meet him at his house in Nkana east to discuss the business of making the black dollar.
James and his friends, Mawela and Kilonga went to Fred’s house in order to continue their business. Fred welcomed them and introduced them to his wife. He ushered them into the house and offered them seats. He confirmed to them that the dollar was real.
James then started to explain that in order for them to clean all the money which was three million dollars in value, some additional chemical removing solution had to be bought. James said that Mawela was the one who knew where it could be bought. He said that they needed to raise one hundred and twenty million Kwacha in order to buy the chemical from a Lebanese business man in Ndola. James said that between him and Mawela, they had raised ninety million Kwacha towards the price of the chemical-removing solution. Fred needed to raise the remaining thirty million kwacha.
Mawela got out ninety million Kwacha cash in fifty thousand Kwacha notes and put it on the table for Fred to count. As soon as he was satisfied, Fred called his wife to the bedroom. He spent about five minutes talking to his wife in the bedroom. He emerged carrying thirty million Kwacha in a small plastic carrier bag and handed it over to Mawela. That money completed the balance of the amount of money that was required to buy the solution.
After re-counting the money, James handed over the brief case containing the black dollars to Fred to keep until the following day when the solution would have been bought. James and his friends excused themselves and left.
The next day around seventeen hours, James phoned Fred to say that they should meet at Edinburgh Hotel. Fred hurried through the bustle of heavy traffic and reached hotel Edinburgh with minutes to spare.
He went up to Highlander bar and found James, Mawela and Kilonga waiting. James offered Fred a beer, which he gladly accepted. Mawela then reached for his breast pocket and produced five small bottles which contained some yellowish liquid and gave them to James. He leaned forward and explained to Fred that they would have to clean the money the next day early in the morning while everyone was asleep. He told Fred to carry the bottles home and put them in the fridge to maintain a cold temperature which was necessary for the solution to work properly. After a few bottles of beer, they parted company. Fred went back home with high expectations for the early morning dollar cleaning exercise.
Fred woke up at 04.00hrs in the morning and reached for the fridge. He got the scare of his life! The small bottles had shattered to pieces in the cold temperature and the contents spilled in the fridge. Fear made him break out in a cold sweat. He was afraid of how his partners would take the news that the solution had been lost. How could he ever raise one hundred million kwacha to pay for the purchase of the solution to replace the spilled one, or even simply the ninety million Kwacha to pay back James and Mawela for their loss?
It was nine hours in the morning (09.00hrs). James and his friends had not been to Fred’s house. They phoned Fred to say that they were on their way to Fred’s house to complete the business. Fred pretended that he had left home for an urgent family matter in Kwacha East. He promised that he would call them once he was back home.
His partners kept on calling him to find out whether he was back home. He kept on avoiding them. They would call him to say, “Bamudala, nishani tulefwaya ukupwisha business, muli kwi? Tulefwaya ama dollars yesu ka. Mwatampa ubucenjeshi.” Meaning: "Big man, what's holding you up? We want to finish this business. We want our dollars. We suspect that you are now playing smart."
Little did Fred suspect that they had actually played a fast one on him. He had been swindled out of his hard earned separation package. His dream of making it to the top of the big guys club of Kitwe crashed under his own roof.
He ended up with millions of a black dollar fortune which cost him his real fortune.
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