A Harare man was arrested and thrown behind bars after he failed to explain some large bank deposits that were made to his account. The man was charged with Money Laundering after US$40,000 was withdrawn from his account in Ivory Coast and France.
26-year-old David Jose Chikungwa appeared before Harare magistrate Dennis Mangosi on Friday to answer charges of money laundering. The magistrate did not grant Chikungwa bail and instead remanded him in custody.
During his initial remand appearance, the court heard that the 26-year-old holds an account with BancABC Bank.
BancABC Bank, the complainant, in this case, alleged that sometime in October 2021, Chikungwa opened two BancABC Visa Prepaid accounts.
After opening the accounts, Chikungwa collected the prepaid Visa Cards at the BancABC branch in Mt Pleasant. He is said to have deposited only US$3 into each of the two accounts.
Within days, however, on October 23, there was a deposit of US$10 000 in one of the accounts. A few hours after the deposit was made, US$10 000 was withdrawn from an ATM in the Ivory Coast, leaving the account with no money.
Two days later, on October 25, Chikungwa’s other account received a deposit of US$100 000. Within a few minutes of the large deposit, US$30 000 cash was withdrawn at an ATM which is in Paris, France.
On the same day, Chikungwa visited BancABC’s Mt Pleasant Branch, where he requested another Visa card linked to his bank account. He claimed that he had lost his previous bank card.
Following the request, the bank realised that one of the bank accounts had been flagged by VISA International on October 23 after suspicious transactions were noticed in Ivory Coast.
The bank officials then quizzed the 26-year-old to explain the source of funds for the vast amounts of money being deposited into his bank accounts.
After Chikungwa failed to explain the source of the funds for the bank deposits, the bank officials filed a police report leading to the arrest of Chikungwa.
The case is still ongoing.-iharare
