The air in Gaborone is thick with festive anticipation. Across the city, shopping malls such as Game City, Airport Junction and Molapo Crossing thrum with life, their corridors alive with a high-volume ballet of shoppers moving in bursts of laughter and urgency.
Trolleys rattle, tills beep and Christmas playlists loop endlessly as families hunt for the perfect gift, drawn into the seasonal rush that turns ordinary errands into a shared December ritual.Yet beneath the sparkle lies a darker reality. The very rush that gives December its energy also makes the season prime hunting ground for seasoned scammers, who prey on people momentarily disarmed by crowds, noise and holiday urgency.
While the once-common “double your money” schemes inside malls have waned, the danger has merely changed shape. Parking lots, ATM queues and traffic-choked access roads have become high-risk zones where a split second of inattention can prove costly.
During a visit to Airport Junction Mall, casual conversations with shoppers revealed that festive fraud is not an abstract warning but a lived reality. Their stories differ in detail but share a common thread: the scam unfolds in moments, exploiting the chaos of the season.
For Thato Mookamedi (45), a government employee and mother of three, last December’s trip to a mall near her home was meant to be routine — a quick cash withdrawal to buy groceries. She approached a standalone ATM outside Molapo Crossing, keenly aware of the festive rush around her.
“I was in a hurry,” she recalls. “It was a Tuesday afternoon and the queue was long. When it was finally my turn, my card kept refusing to go in properly. That’s when a well-dressed, polite young man stepped forward and offered to help.”
The stranger explained that the ATM was “sensitive” and suggested he guide the card while she entered her PIN. A flicker of unease crossed her mind, but the pressure of the line and his professional manner overrode her instinct.
“He suddenly said the machine ‘o jele karata ya gago, rakgadi’ and pointed at the receipt slot, saying something was coming out,” she explains.
In a split second, as he created a small commotion, he swapped her card for a dummy.
“He said, ‘Ah, it says transaction cancelled. Try a different machine or bank,’ and handed me back the card. I slipped it into my wallet and walked away, irritated more by the faulty ATM than anything else. It wasn’t until I tried to pay at a supermarket that I realised the card wasn’t mine. Over P6 000 had been withdrawn in moments,” she says, her festive plans derailed in an instant.
Another victim, Pako Keodibele (32), a self-employed businessman, recounts a different trap in the dim, crowded underground parking of Game City.
“A woman suddenly appeared and pointed frantically at my front tyre, shouting in Setswana that it was completely flat — ga o kake wa kgweetsa koloi ka leotwana le le flat,” he says. Instinctively, leaving a trolley full of electronics, he bent down to check the supposedly flat tyre. Moments later, his wallet — which he had left atop the trolley — was gone.
“One person created the drama while an accomplice lifted my wallet. The crowd, darkness and chaos made it easy for them to disappear. It took less than 30 seconds,” he says.
Inside were his ID, bank cards and a large amount of cash he had set aside for the holidays. Neo Lesole (28), a university student, also fell prey to a festive distraction. Walking towards the taxi rank at Airport Junction, a man bumped into her, spilling a sticky substance on her clothes and bags.
“He apologised profusely, saying he’d tripped. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, my coffee must have spilled! Let me clean it for you, please!’” she explains.
As he flustered her with apologies and fussed over the mess, her handbag — momentarily set down — was emptied of cash and her phone. Money for her bus fare and a P200 note from her grandmother were all gone.
“It was over in seconds,” she says. “He kept me facing away from my things, cleaning the small smudge. Then he looked up, said, ‘I’m so sorry, have a nice day,’ and just walked off.”
The commotion had been a deliberate distraction, designed to force her to drop her guard. Neo’s story, like Thato’s and Pako’s, shows that these crimes rely less on sophistication than on timing, pressure and predictable seasonal distractions. None of the victims were threatened with force. The scammers simply nudged, hurried or unsettled them just enough to act.
Physical scams, however, are only one part of the picture. The festive season increasingly brings digital fraud, particularly through mobile money platforms such as Orange Money and e-Wallet. Scammers operate invisibly, exploiting trust and urgency through spoofed messages, fake promotions and fraudulent calls, draining accounts in seconds. December amplifies this risk as people rush, spend more and respond quickly to urgent-sounding messages.
What makes these scams particularly effective is the emotional climate of the season. People are sending money to relatives, paying for transport and groceries, and juggling multiple expenses, often without their usual caution. Scammers mimic official language, create artificial urgency and rely on the assumption that no one wants their Christmas plans disrupted.
In an interview, Superintendent Zibani Seretse of the Botswana Police Service’s Serious Crime Squad confirmed that several cases of obtaining money by false pretence have been recorded, with many Batswana losing significant amounts.
“The most common are competition scams where criminals call pretending to be banks, claiming you’ve won vouchers and requesting banking details,” she explains. “During the 2024 festive season, losses reached P7.6 million, and between January and October this year, P6.6 million.”
Supt. Seretse urges the public to remain vigilant. “Beware of imposters, never share PINs or OTPs, and report suspicious activity immediately.”
As the holiday season unfolds in Gaborone and beyond, the message is clear: to enjoy a safe and joyous Christmas, vigilance is essential. Protect your belongings, safeguard your banking information and remain alert to opportunistic tactics. In a season defined by giving and celebration, awareness is the gift that preserves both your joy and your hard-earned money.
