HARARE - A Harare magistrate has placed on remand three Navistar Insurance Brokers (Private) Limited (Navistar) bosses, linked to the Air Zimbabwe (Private) Limited (Air Zimbabwe) fraud case.
Givemore Nderere, 45, Vukile Hlupo, 45 and Orten Mawire, 60, yesterday appeared before Harare magistrate Vakayi Douglas Chikwekwe facing four counts of fraud and theft of trust property charges.
Chikwekwe postponed the matter to today for bail hearing.
Nderere and Hlupo are managing directors of Navistar, while Mawire is its finance director.
State claims the trio connived with Air Zimbabwe bosses Peter Chikumba and Grace Nyaradzai Pfumbidzai to defraud the national airline by inflating aviation insurance premiums.
It is alleged that the group presented several inflated debit notes to the airline, leading to payments of exorbitant aviation insurance premiums last year.
The payments were allegedly made to Colemont Reinsurance (Private) Limited and Marsh Reinsurance Brokers (Private) Limited, both United kingdom-based companies.
Prosecutor Michael Reza told the court that as a result of the misrepresentation, the airline’s finance department released Euro 15 783 452, 93 to Navistar.
According to state papers, Navistar only remitted Euro 10 607 859, 22 to the two international brokers and pocketed Euro 5 895 695, 49.
In May 2009, it is alleged Navistar received $142 300 from the airline for onward transmission to the European Commission to dodge sanctions.
They allegedly converted the money to their own use.
The court heard that Pfumbidzai and Innocent Mavhunga originated fictitious debit notes in the sum of $1 659 276, 58 in 2012.
The money was purportedly requested for the aviation insurance premiums for two leased A320 airbuses.
The transaction was reportedly intercepted by auditors, but the airline had already released $360 448, 68, the court heard.
It is further alleged that Colemont Insurance issued debit notes to Air Zimbabwe for aviation insurance premiums between 2009 and 2010, after the Navistar trio allegedly connived with Pfumbidzai and Mavhunga for the payment of aviation insurance in the sum of Euro713 921, 04.