Firm, directors found guilty of fraud, forgery

Mathew Masinge
CHRISTIAN Community Life Assurance has been found guilty of fraud and forgery after they duped two foreigners in an investment deal.

The matter was heard at the High Court after the Prosecutor General, Nelson Mutsonziwa, challenged an earlier decision by Harare magistrate, Gloria Takundwa, to acquit the company and its directors of any wrongdoing.

The company was jointly charged with its directors, Washington Frera, Vincent Tom Baris and Norman Ngoshi.

According to papers filed in court, the Christian Community Life Assurance directors, sometime between May 2017 and March 2018, forged signatures of Yan Yu and the late Zhaosheng Wu, in what they claimed was agreement of sale deal.

The botched agreement of sale meant that one of the directors, Frera, had swapped a gold mine claim for Yan and Zhaoseng’s 100 percent shares in their company, Shomet Industrial (Pvt) Ltd.

The directors went further to deceive the Registrar of Companies where they misrepresented that Yan and Zhaoseng had resigned as directors of Shomet Industrial before installing themselves as the new bosses.

Yan and his late partner were allegedly prejudiced of land in Waterfalls valued at US$4, 2 million.

The same directors made another misrepresentation to Fortburry (Pvt) Ltd, led by Cornilius Muzvongi, when they roped him in as a partner to develop the land.

Muzvongi was made to pay US$101 000 to Christian Community Life Assurance.

The State also managed to prove that Frera, under the guise of a director at Shomet Industrial, went on to apply for a certified copy of the Deed of Transfer registered under 621/2009, lying that the original copy was lost.

This meant that Frera and company were now holders of a Deed of Transfer against the one Yan had placed in custody of a local bank.

Magistrate Takundwa had dismissed Yan’s evidence saying he had a change of heart on the agreement of sale.

However, The PG argued that the magistrate had failed to consider all of the evidence before her when she acquitted the crew.

In their finding Justices Happias Zhou and Benjamin Chikowero found the company guilty and ordered its directors to avail themselves for sentencing.

“The appeal against the judgement of the Regional Court Harare in CRB R688-91/19 handed down on March 3 2020 acquitting the first, second, third and fourth respondents of one count of forgery as defined in section 137 of the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act and two counts of fraud as defined in section 136 of the criminal law codification and reform Act be and is allowed.

“The verdict of not guilty and acquitted in all three counts, and in respect of all the four respondents. Be and is set aside and substituted with guilty as charged.

‘The matter be and is hereby remitted to the court a quo for mitigation, aggravation and sentencing,” reads the judgment.