$22m fraud suspect cleared

Crime Reporter

One of the four employees of TM Pick n Pay arrested for stealing $22 million from the supermarket chain’s Steward Bank account, Moses January Banda, has been acquitted of the offence by a Harare magistrate.

At the start of the trial, Banda had distanced himself from the offence saying his hands were clean and that he had been falsely implicated.

Last Friday he was cleared of the charges when he appeared at the Harare Magistrates Court.

In March 2021, when Banda appeared for initial remand and his bail application, he had indicated that he did not know any of the other suspects who implicated him of playing a major role in the fraud and he had no links to Ronald Mudzingwa, Tonderai Salesio Chagweda and Tatenda Wellington Jombe, who had already been arrested in connection with the fraud.

The State had alleged that on January 28 2021 the gang created the email address raymond.matsetswa@TM/supermarkets.com to make it look as if it was for the supermarket’s finance manager Raymond Mutsetswa and the chief finance officer Gamuchirai Nyamuzinga.

It was said that they then sent an email to Steward Bank with instructions forms bearing forged signatures of Matsetswa and Nyamuzinga instructing the bank to debit TM Supermarkets account with four large sums.

Steward Bank, without noting the differences in email addresses, processed payments of $10 million to Simrac Investments, $3 million to Leechiz Investment, $7 million to Madzara Investment and $2 million to Maloka Constructing Company.

The fraud came to light on March 3, 2021 after TM Supermarket head office discovered these transactions and a subsequent investigation found that the instructing email came from a different address than that used by the finance manager.

Mudzingwa was then arrested on March 9, 2021 and he allegedly implicated Chagweda who then allegedly implicated Banda.

Tonderai Selesio Chagweda (28) and Wellington Jombe (34) then appeared in court on allegations of defrauding TM Pick n Pay of $22 million after posing as the supermarket chain’s finance managers.

They were charged with fraud when they appeared before Harare magistrate Mr Richard Mangosi.