Online Reporter
Zvikomborero Parafini
THREE Steward Bank employees are being accused of orchestrating a sophisticated criminal enterprise, in which they generated visa cards and opened accounts for people who do not exist, to fraudulently withdraw more than US$33 000 from some dormant accounts.
Two of the three employees — Audrey Njanike and Ian Takaedza — were not asked to plead when they appeared in court in Harare yesterday before magistrate Apollonia Marutya.
Njanike was employed by Steward Bank as a Dispute and Charge Backs Clerk while Takaedza was the Cards Operations Clerk at the bank’s Avondale Branch in Harare.
The two were fired by the bank last week.
The bank was represented by Maheya Ezekiel, who is the financial institution’s Security and Investigations officer.
Steward Bank has some accounts, which lie dormant within their system, usually as a result of some account holders having left the country, leaving some cash deposits, while some, for unknown reasons, have deposits which are not being withdrawn.
The court heard that between September 27 last year to January 9 this year, the duo connived and generated some visa cards and opened visa accounts, which they credited to various persons who do not exist, after withdrawing from the dormant accounts.
The duo and their accomplice, Alexander Rwambiwa, who is at large, then transferred various amounts of money from the Steward Bank visa accounts into their fraudulent account numbers.
The trio would then withdraw the money, which they then converted to their own use.
The crime was discovered when an audit was carried out.
It revealed that the bank had been duped.
The revelations led to the dismissal of the trio from employment on last week,
The bank lost US$33 285.
