Crimes and Courts Correspondent<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The trial involving two former employees of Varun Beverages, Elvis Muzvidziwa and Vitalis Masikati, centers around allegations of a fraudulent currency conversion scheme that resulted in a loss of US$305,790 for the company. The case has drawn attention due to the methods employed by the accused to manipulate sales proceeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Varum Beverages are producers and distributors of such products as Pepsi, 7Up, Sting Energy Drink and Miranda range of fizzy drinks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the trial, Kundai Sibanda, a sales route agent, testified that Muzvidziwa introduced her and other colleagues to a secretive scheme where he claimed he could convert their US dollar earnings to RTGS (Zimbabwean dollars) before depositing them into the company’s account. This scheme was reportedly unknown to Varun Beverages, raising serious concerns about internal controls and oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sibanda noted that from June 23, 2023, sales targets became increasingly difficult to meet due to customer complaints about pricing. She mentioned that customers were requesting a lower price of US$6.50 instead of the company’s set price of US$7.00, which compounded the pressure she faced from both customers and superiors to meet daily sales targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The prosecution alleges that between June 1 and July 6, 2023, Muzvidziwa and Masikati conspired to defraud the company. Instead of depositing the collected sales proceeds into Varun’s SAP account, they allegedly shared the funds among themselves and posted fake figures totaling ZWL $1,829,799,989 into the account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An external audit by Crowe Chartered Accountants uncovered these discrepancies, leading to the arrest of the accused. Police investigations revealed that significant amounts of cash were hidden by Muzvidziwa, including US$76,804 found at Masikati’s residence and US$23,007 hidden in Muzvidziwa’s wardrobe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additionally, Masikati was found to have purchased two vehicles, a Toyota Hiace Van and a Toyota Axio, with the proceeds from the alleged fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both Muzvidziwa and Masikati have pleaded not guilty to the charges. The trial continues as more evidence and testimonies are presented in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zim GBC News\u00a92024<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Crimes and Courts Correspondent The trial involving two former employees of Varun Beverages, Elvis Muzvidziwa and Vitalis Masikati, centers around allegations of a fraudulent currency conversion scheme that resulted in… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime-and-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6030,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6028\/revisions\/6030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}