Livingstone Mtetwa
CHIPINGE– Two former Econet Wireless employees who connived to swindle the mobile telecommunications giant of ZW$20 million were on January 28, 2022 sentenced to an effective three and two years respectively.
Mukai Maringe Mapanzure (35) and Gavin Tinashe Guwu (30), appeared before Chipinge regional magistrate Christopher Maturure, facing fraud charges and were convicted after a full trial.
Mapanzure was facing 108 counts of fraud, while Guwu had 98 counts.
Mapanzure was initially sentenced to seven years in prison but two were suspended on condition of good behaviour. Two more years were suspended on condition that he restitutes the complainant of nearly ZW $15 million. He will serve an effective three-year jail term.
Guwu was sentenced to four years, of which two were suspended on condition of good behavior.
In his ruling, Maturure said although the accused showed remorse by their willingness to restitute their employer, it will be a mockery of justice if the two were spared a custodial sentence because of the gravity of their offence.
“In assessing the sentence, the court has considered that part of the stolen money was recovered. The court is sentencing them separately because the second accused (Guwu) initially committed the offence with the first accused (Mapanzure), but later received money to buy American dollars from the latter,” said Maturure.
Prosecutor Walter Saunyama told the court that sometime in 2019, Mapanzure and Guwu hatched a plan to swindle their employer of funds.
“They replaced an Econet mobile broadband merchant line 0784953460 with a physical sim card which enabled them to carry out Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) transactions by inserting the Sim card in a Mobicel cellphone with serial number 359725084071720 and transferred money into agent lines,” said Saunyama.
