A TURKISH investor, Yuksel Bayrak, was allegedly swindled of over $100 000 in a fraudulent land deal by local prominent business people in a matter that has sucked in the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) and stirred a nasty diplomatic tiff between Harare and Istanbul.
CHARLES LAITON
Bayrak, who is Horizon Educational Trust director, was allegedly duped into buying a non-existent piece of land for the construction of a primary and secondary school by businessman Louis Chidzambwa and chairman of the Harare West Development Trust Michael Mujeyi.
Bayrak is regional representative of the Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists of Turkiye, Tuskon and also a representative of Turkey’s biggest non-governmental organisation, KimseYok Mu, accredited by the Economical and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC).
Chidzambwa and Mujeyilast week appeared before Harare magistrate Donald Ndirowei charged with fraud and were remanded out of custody to August 26 on $500 bail each.
Allegations against the two men are that in early 2012, Bayrak met Mujeyi after he was introduced to him by one Marah Hativagone, former president of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industry (CZI).
The State alleges Hativagone told Bayrak that Mujeyi could assist him in obtaining a piece of land to build primary and secondary schools in the Westgate area.
Chidzambwa and Mujeyi, it is alleged, took the Turkish investor to Stamford and Goodhope Farms owned by Duncan Lawrence Annott along Lomagundi Road in Harare where they asked him to choose from two pieces of land measuring 20 hectares each and he chose one at Goodhope Farm.
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The two men then asked Bayrak to pay $50 000 for the land and $10 000 to Mujeyi for facilitating the deal.
Mujeyi, it is alleged, then produced a document he titled “Proposed Funds Disbursement Plan” and promised that the agreement and title deeds for the land would be ready in two months.
Bayrak, it is alleged made the payment through the two men’s personal accounts between September 12 and October 19, 2012. The State alleges, early March last year, Chidzambwa and Mujeyi again approached Bayrak and told him the land needed to be surveyed first before any development took place.
They asked him to pay $40 000 into the UZ’s Department of Geo-informatics and Surveying to facilitate the land survey to which he allegedly complied on March 5 last year.
The alleged offence came to light on May 24 this year when Bayrak made follow-ups and Arnott informed him that the land in question had never been put up for sale.
