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Nyore Madzianike Senior Court Reporter
ONE of the masterminds behind the country’s arguably biggest cyber fraud that saw mobile phone network operator, NetOne, losing $550 million in the scam involving pinless airtime credit facility appeared in court yesterday, with $250 million having been recovered so far.
Jemina Karombe (43), a supervisor at NetOne Julius Nyerere shop, appeared at the Harare Magistrates Court charged with unauthorised access or use of computer network and money laundering.
Karombe was not asked to plead to the charges when she appeared before regional magistrate Mr Stanford Mambanje, who remanded her to March 23 on free bail.
She was being represented by lawyer Mr Dumisani Mtombeni.
Karombe’s workmate Khumbulani Nyapfumbi appeared in court on Saturday and was remanded to the same date on $400 000 bail.
Nyapfumbi appeared before regional magistrate Mr Clever Tsikwa.
Primrose Maireti, Faith Ndagurwa, Simbarashe Mandimutsira, James Mwanza also appeared before the same court facing similar charges.
The State led by Mr Kennedy Madekutsikwa alleges that on January 25, a whistle-blower told CID Commercial Crimes Division Northern Region that NetOne Cellular Private limited company employees were stealing pinless credit airtime and supplying dealers, who in turn were selling it at a more discounted price than the company.
Investigations established that Karombe allegedly instructed Ndagurwa, her subordinate who is employed as customer care officer and responsible for selling pinless credit airtime, to give Nyapfumbi her username and password.
On January 26, detectives from CID Commercial Crimes Division Northern Region visited NetOne Cellular management and established that its loss control and fraud management team was already carrying out internal investigations following instructions from the chief executive officer, who, according to the State, had been tipped off.
A joint investigation was carried out and established that James Mwanza, a NetOne dealer, had received $50 000 000 transferred using the pinless facility.
Upon being interviewed, via a trace back method, Mwanza implicated his employee Primrose Maireti, as the person who had sold him the pinless airtime using the NetOne’s *171# credit transfer channel.
NetOne Cellular Private Limited then verified all suspicious transactions and established that there were 75 transactions on pinless credit airtime which was stolen from NetOne’s ZSmart System to NetOne line 0718 733 958 which is registered under the name, Samuel Njanji.
There are no further particulars captured in the NetOne database.
According to the State, $5 million was sold on December 3 last year, $30 million was then sold on December 5 with $20 million being sold the following day.
About $203 millionwas sold on December 20 while $307 999 964 was sold on January 19 this year.
Further investigations established that the line 0718 733 958 was activated on December 3 last year at NetOne Julius Nyerere Shop in Harare.
It was also discovered that NetOne Cellular employees were sharing Ndagurwa’s username and password.
After the arrest, a Honda Fit registration (AFW6813) was recovered from one of them, while another one is being shipped from Japan.
It is alleged that one of them bought a residential stand, which is yet to be identified, for US$11 000.
Online Reporter