Teller in court for US$19 000 fraud.

Yeukai Karengezeka

Court Correspondent

A bank teller yesterday appeared in court for defrauding his employer of US$19 000 through making illicit transactions on behalf of clients.

Walter Matare appeared before Harare magistrate Mrs Munashe Chibanda charged with fraud and was released on US$500 bail.

The bank is being represented by its supervisor Wellington Zvandasara.

The bank has two types of accounts for customers – one for Zimbabwean dollars and the other for US dollars.

Every teller has got access through their created user name, password and these accounts are accessed through the same banking system. The procedure for accepting deposits from clients is that the client completes a deposit slip, includes all the denominations of the money, and proceeds to the teller who then verifies the amount, the currency, and the account details of the client.

After being satisfied, the teller will access the system by selecting the correct account, picking the correct channel of the currency being deposited and he will proceed to make the deposit. The State alleges that on June 16, Mr Zvandasara made checks on Matare’s transactions and noted several errors, making him suspicious.  On June 21, Mr Zvandasara received a suspicious transaction report to monitor a nostro bank account belonging to a bank client after it emerged that there was a deposit done by the client and 10 minutes later, the client made a withdrawal.

He checked all the deposits done by Matare and discovered that whenever a Zimbabwe dollar deposit was made, he would always pick the Zimbabwe dollar channel, but credit the deposits into a nostro account of the client and the same clients would make cash withdrawals in US dollars.

From 6 January 2023 up to 16 June 2023, Matare misrepresented that three bank clients had deposited $20 750 into their Zimbabwe dollar accounts. But, the court heard, Matare accessed the banking system, picked the Zimbabwe dollar channel, and credited these deposits into US dollar account numbers of the clients purporting as if they had deposited US dollars.

Thereafter, from 13 March 2023 up to June 6, Matare went on to withdraw the deposited funds from the US dollar accounts of the clients by misrepresenting that the clients had completed withdrawal slips.

Matare having funded the accounts through the above fraudulent means on 28 April 2023 transferred US$970 from Makomborero Machiya’s account into a Lucky Brand [Private] Limited’s Stanbic Bank account.

On May 22, he transferred US$2 850 into Raina Agnes Mhembere ‘s First Capital Bank account and on June 8 accused transferred US$3 300 and US$1 600 into Raina Agnes Mhembere’s First Capital Bank account to make a total of US$8 720.

The total value prejudiced is US$19 627 and nothing was recovered.