A Kenyan businesswoman was charged in the Harare Magistrates Court with hacking a Zimbabwean fund and stealing a total of $120 million (approximately Sh14.8 billion) from its bank account.

40-year-old Primrose Nyeri Mwangi appeared before magistrate Stanford Mambanje on charges of infiltrating the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef) systems.

Prosecution claims Primrose, who is the director of Primkett Travels, in December 2022 hatched the hacking fraud plot with Gerald Pondai and Prosper Hove, who remain at large.

The three are alleged to have used the Zeepay ZimSwitch system to access Zimdef bank accounts before transferring the $20 million into Maffkett Trading’s Steward Bank account.

The three are then reported to have moved various amounts of the cash into Newplaces (Pvt) Limited NBS Bank, Atrier Engineering CBZ Bank and Tavaka Holdings accounts.

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The Harare court was told on January 5, 2023 that the hackers used Zimdef authorisation codes and directed banks to move large sums of cash to their own bank accounts.

The revelations on the hacking came public on December 28, 2023 after a whistle-blower wrote an email to Zimdef, which is headed by CEO Eng Sebastian Marume, capturing the details of the alleged fraudulent transactions.

An investigation by police in Harare led then to arrest the Kenyan tourist, who operates Maffkett Private Limited Company and Primkett Travel, which were run at Joina City.

ZIMDEF CEO Eng Sebastian Marume. PHOTO/ZIMDEF

Upon further investigation, Zimdef reportedly discovered that a total of $120 million (approximately Sh14.8 billion) had been stolen from its Zimdef ZB Bank and CBZ Bank accounts but only $30,000 had been retrieved after NBS bank reversed a dubious transaction.

Primrose was thus charged before the Harare Magistrates Court with fraud and violating conditions of her tourist visa for between December 14, 2022 and January 14, 2023.

The State alleges that Primrose then used the money alleged to have been transferred into her company’s bank account in Zimbabwe to purchase cooking oil in bulk.