HARARE – A syndicate of six suspected fraudsters including the alleged ringleader in the forgery of the tittle deed to former Cabinet Minister, Dr Dzingai Mutumbuka’s house has appeared at the Harare Magistrates Court today for allegedly altering documents to a US$400 000 Borrowdale home and sold it for only US$92 000.
Prosper Bizwork (48) who is also the alleged mastermind in the current case and five accomplices are charged with fraud as defined in Section 136 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act Chapter 9; 23.
The suspects were arrested by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) detectives in just two weeks after ZRP had failed to make any headway in four months.
It is understood that some ZRP officers are now under investigation for receiving US$7 000 to sweep the case under the carpet. Sources allege that the officers had demanded US$20 000 to destroy the case.
The State is denying bail for the six arguing that they are likely to abscond considering the serious charges that they are facing. The Investigation officer, Eric Chacha told the court that investigations have linked syndicate members to 10 other properties that were fraudulently sold.
He said the syndicate has links to a number of Government departments where it managed to get forged identity cards and to get a replacement deed.
Bizwork was supposed to appear in another courtroom today in a case in which he forged title deeds to Dr Mutumbuka’s US$600 000 Chisipite house and sold it for just US$45 000.
The case had to be postponed.
According to the State outline, conveyancing of the property; Number 589 Rietfontein Township of Lot 15 Harare was done at TK Hove and Partners. The law firm’s conveyancing clerk Samson Mushayi is one of the six who was arrested and appeared for bail application today.
Mushayi is also accused of creating a duplicate title deed used to sell the house. The State also says Mushayi is the one who facilitated interviews at Zimra and the transfer of the property in the name of the buyers.
The other accused are Erick Dube (39), Tedious Marufu (47), Amos Chisvo (43) and Patience Nhope (46). Another suspect only identified as Collen is at large.
The State says sometime in 2023, the six connived to defraud unsuspecting buyers and sell them houses.
Bizwork hired Patience Nhope and another person only known as Collen to act as sellers of 589 Rietfontein which in actual fact are owned by Octavious Chikonyora and Precious Danda. He managed to get fictitious identity cards for the two sellers of the houses in the name of Chikonyora and Danda.
Nhope and collen appeared for interviews at Zimra pretending to be Chikonyora and Danda.
Bizwork then brought in Marufu to look for agents to sell the house. Marufu brought in Chisvo and Ndamuka as agents.
Mushayi was brought in for conveyancing and allegations are that meetings were held at his offices at TK Hove.
Dube advertised the house using a fake name Raphael Dube under a marketing company called Rockwell Land Developers.
Max Merrit Msutu and Tariro Chingaya responded to the advert wanting to buy the house. The two insisted that they wanted to use their own conveyance company but they were told that for the purpose of transferring and conveyancing, this was strictly going to happen at TK Hove and Partners.
It is the State case that TK Hove did not have the original title deed of the property hence Mushayi created a duplicate deed.
After the finalisation of the deal the syndicate which had agreed to share the money equally getting about US$10 000 each did not as others were duped and they got less than US$5 000.
The owner of house who was away only became aware of the deal after a neighbour called him to find out if he had sold the house since he had seen new people tidying up the place.
The bail ruling will be on Monday. – Masvingo Mirror
