THE echoes of the Ecobank armed robbery in Bulawayo are still being heard - almost a year after a gang of armed robbers drove away with a staggering US$4 million.
Why the ringing tone of that daylight robbery is even growing louder is because it's the BIGGEST bank robbery in the country's history and there have been huge developments in the investigations.
It took 130 years of banking history in the City of Kings for a gang of armed robbers to finally hit the biggest jackpot of them all with their US$4,4 million heist on October 3, last year.
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The first bank to be opened in Bulawayo was Standard Bank of South Africa. which opened its doors on May 4, 1894, and the makeshift branch was just a tent at a police camp.
In a few weeks' time, Zimbabwe will mark the first anniversary of that day when gunmen raided the Ecobank branch in Bulawayo's CBD and stole a cool US$4,4 million loot.
The recent arrest of the Vumbunu brothers in South Africa has brought the focus firmly back on that heist.
The sight of a group of gunmen staging a robbery in the middle of a bustling city centre, and driving away with a US$4,4 million loot, and a family of brothers with a colourful past being arrested in South Africa, ten months later, has all the ingredients to keep the appeal of the heist alive.
It doesn't have the same appeal as the sight of two well-dressed people - a man and a woman - casually walking into a court in Harare despite the duo being accused of allegedly stealing more than what the armed robbers stole from the Ecobank heist.
It didn't even hit the front pages.
On Tuesday, two ZIMRA employees appeared at the Harare Magistrates Court facing allegations of allegedly conniving to dupe the country's premier revenue collecting authority of more than US$6,3million.
Shupikai Mary Nicola Marongwe, a Database Administrator, and Paradzai Mutasa, a systems developer, appeared before Harare magistrate Marewanazvo Gofa.
Prosecutors claim the duo, pursuant to their plan to deceive ZIMRA of its revenue, allegedly created an account called ZESWASYCUDA with exclusive rights to edit or delete, and update any table in the ASYCUDA database.
The two allegedly recruited clearing agents across the country whose pre-payment accounts would be utilised in this scam.
Mutasa allegedly started abusing the account by creating fictitious and inflated figures in the clearing agents' pre-payments accounts, misrepresenting that the agents had deposited a certain amount in the ZIMRA bank accounts yet, in the actual fact, no such amount had been deposited.
As a result of the duo's conduct, a number of clearing agents imported goods without paying duty.
Thereafter, according to the charges, the duo would then be given hard cash by the clearing agents and went on to convert it for personal use, with the clearing agents also getting their share.
Various Bills of Entry were processed by ZIMRA but the figures, which were reflecting in the clearing agents' prepayment accounts, was not the true value of money deposited.
Prosecutors claimed that ZIMRA suffered an actual prejudice of ZIG$171 186 079.41 which is equivalent to US$6,340,251 as well as a further US$37,200 and nothing was recovered.
Just a few weeks before the country marks the first anniversary of the US$4,4 million Ecobank heist, it is having to deal with the reality that its principal revenue collection authority was scammed of US$6,3 million - this time without a gun being required.
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There is need for some context here:
- The amount which prosecutors claim ZIMRA lost in this scam is about US$1,9 million more than what was stolen in the biggest bank robbery in the 131-year history of banking in this country - the first commercial bank, Standard Bank, was opened in Harare in 1894.
- It is almost equivalent to the R120 million which the Gupta brothers were accused by the South African Revenue Services of duping the organisation in terms of unpaid income taxes.
- The value of the ZIMRA loss, though, is lower than the R200 million fraud case which exploded in South Africa after Jeremiah Dube's wife, Rebecca, tipped off authorities that he was spoiling his girlfriend with a R90,000 allowance from money scammed from SARS.
