THREE Turnall Holdings executives appeared before Harare magistrate Elijah Makomo yesterday charged with defrauding their employer of $2,5 million through an elaborate and sophisticated scam, where they allegedly paid for fictitious orders and shared the loot.
PAIDAMOYO MUZULU
The trio of former managing director Abel John Jere (54), former marketing director Edwin Kondo (49) and technical director Francis Chigwedere (55) was not asked to plead to the charge.
After prosecutor Peter Kachirika read out the charges and indicated that the State was not opposed to the granting of bail, Makomo advised the suspects to make a formal bail application.
According to State papers, the trio, with their alleged accomplices, Elizabeth Mawukwa, who is still at large, and the now-deceased Robert Dube, hatched a plot to defraud their employer from September 2010 to the end of 2014.
The group approached Auto Control managing director, Adam Muhita and misrepresented that they had been authorised by Turnall board members to access their bonuses through his company, so that other employees would not know they had been given bonuses.
Jere then allegedly instructed Muhita to raise fictitious proforma invoices as if Auto Control had provided services to Turnall Holdings.
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Jere would then ensure money was transferred to Auto Control’s bank account, where Muhita would withdraw the money and hand it over to the accused.
The State further alleges Muhita made the accused sign in a diary every time they collected money from him and the diary has been recovered and will be submitted in court as an exhibit.
The suspects allegedly prejudiced Turnall Holdings of $2 449 071,21 and nothing was recovered.
