HARARE – A NetOne cashier was arrested for fraud following a sudden lifestyle change which saw him splash on half-a-dozen luxury cars, a court heard on Thursday.
Daniel Kalira, 39, lived a millionaire’s life after pilfering Z$150 million from the mobile phone network provider over two years, prosecutors allege.
He was not asked to plead when he appeared before Harare magistrate Yeukai Dzuda charged with theft.
He was freed on Z$20,000 bail and remanded to June 27.
The National Prosecuting Authority alleges that Kalira spent some of the stolen money buying top-of-the range vehicles including a Toyota GD6 twin cab, three Mercedes Benz sedans and two BMW sedans.
All the vehicles have been sequestered following investigations by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC).
It is alleged that from January 2020 and May 23, 2022, Kalira stole airtime from NetOne by falsifying his sales of airtime on the stock issue vouchers which he dispatched to NetOne sales agents.
On August 25, 2021, Kalira allegedly falsified issue voucher number 77064 where he indicated that he dispatched 17,400 airtime cards of Z$100. Instead, Kalira had allegedly dispatched 80,300 cards valued at ZW$100 each depriving Netone of ZW$7.99 million.
On January 26, 2022, Kalira allegedly falsified stock issue voucher number 77067 by indicating that he dispatched a total of 5,917 cards of ZW$100 each when he had dispatched 28,416 cards depriving NetOne of ZWL$2.25 million.
An audit to ascertain the actual amount stolen from NetOne is still ongoing.
Kalira was arrested after a whistleblower shopped him to ZACC.
