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3 nabbed for illegally seizing Chinese firm

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THREE people have been nabbed on allegations of illegally seizing a Chinese-owned firm, Shomet Industrial Holdings by fraudulently changing its ownership into their names without the knowledge of the proprietor.

THREE people have been nabbed on allegations of illegally seizing a Chinese-owned firm, Shomet Industrial Holdings by fraudulently changing its ownership into their names without the knowledge of the proprietor.

BY DESMOND CHINGARANDE

Washington Frera (38), Vincent Tom Barris (57) and Norman Ngoshi (42) were not asked to plead when they appeared before magistrate Tilda Mazhande, who remanded them to May 4 on $100 bail.

The complainant, Shomet Industrial Holdings, is in the business of property development and the company owns 25 1449 hectares of land situated in Greendale.

Allegations are that sometime in May 2017, Shomet Industrial Holdings represented by its director Yan Yu decided to borrow $2,2 million together with her late husband, Zhaosheng Wu for the purpose of developing their business. It is alleged during the same period the trio got information and hatched a plan to defraud the complainant of their company and assets.

The State alleges that in pursuant to their plan, Frera, who is represented by Job Sikhala, approached the complainant and said their company, Christian Community Life Assurance, could lend them $2,2 million at an interest rate of 15%.

Yu allegedly agreed to borrow and, as surety, she offered her 100% shares in Shomet Holdings. On May 9 last year, a memorandum of a loan agreement was signed between Shomet and Christian Community Life Assurance Company and the accused promised to make the loan payment by May 29 that same year.

The State alleges the trio did not fulfil the loan agreement, which resulted in the cancellation of the agreement by the complainant. It is the State’s case that sometime in September last year, the accused manufactured a fake agreement of sale in which they purported that Christian Community Life Assurance Company had swapped its gold mining claims in Bindura with complainant’s 100% shares in Shomet Holdings and they forged the signature of the late Wu.

The trio allegedly used the fake agreement of sale to change the directorship of Shomet Holdings at the Registrar of Companies, where they misrepresented that Yu and Wu had resigned.

It is alleged sometime this month, the trio, using the fake CR14 forms, approached a land developer Fortburry (Private) Limited, represented by Cornelius Muzvongi and misrepresented to him that they own 25 1499 hectares of land in Waterfalls and were looking for the development of the said properties.

The matter allegedly came to light after Muzvongi verified the documents and approached Yu for clarifications, before entering into an agreement. He discovered that the documents used were fake leading to their arrests. Sebastian Mutizirwa appeared for the State.