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Yeukai Karengezeka
Court Correspondent
A maid who stole US$107 000 from her Chinese employer and shared it with two cops stationed at Central Criminal Bureau in Harare, who are currently on the run, has been convicted of theft by Harare magistrate, Mrs Ethel Chichera.
Marvellous Mapfumo (34) of Nyatsime, Chitungwiza pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing today.
Prosecutor Mr Takudzwa Mutyavaviri told the court, Mr Sisi Lin, an accountant at Tian-tian Fresh Mart Supermarket in Highlands, would keep money from his workplace in a drawer in his bedroom. Mr Sisi Lin would leave the door unlocked to allow Mapfumo to clean his room.
Mapfumo noticed that the money was brought in daily and informed her boyfriend Herbert Chikwiza Kurebgwaseka who advised her to let the money accumulate before they could finally steal it.
However, on May 30, Mapfumo stole US$107 000 from Mr Sisi Lin.
It is alleged that she later shared the money with her cop boyfriend Kurebgwaseka and Paul Kondo after they promised to protect her.
At around 5pm, on the same day, Mapfumo informed Kurebgwaseka that she had stolen the cash and wanted him and his friend to pick her up at the house.
They then drove to a lodge in Waterfalls where they met Kondo and shared the loot.
The two police officers shared US$60 000 between themselves, while Mapfumo got US$47 000.
Kurebgwaseka went on to take Mapfumo’s share for safe-keeping saying he suspected that she was being tracked by detectives.
After her arrest near Bulawayo, while she was in a truck on her way out of the country, she was brought back to CID Highlands, Harare, where she implicated Kurebgwaseka and Kondo as her accomplices.
The court heard that Kondo later took Mapfumo to his girlfriend’s house in Sunningdale, where he restricted her from talking to anyone, while he organised to take her to South Africa to evade arrest.
From May 30 to June 11, Mapfumo was staying with Kondo’s girlfriend and she found her a house to rent in Glen View 3 and bought her some property.
On June 12, 2024, detectives from CID Nkulumane, Bulawayo, received information from three sources that Mapfumo had boarded a truck to South Africa via Botswana.
The detectives acted on the information and arrested her. The property and a Honda Fit belonging to Kondo which was used to commit the crime have since been seized.
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