40-year-old Primrose Mwangi, a Kenyan national is being charged at a court in Harare, Zimbabwe for hacking and stealing Sh. 14.8 billion from the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (ZimDeF).
The court was told that Primrose Mwangi and several of her accomplices used ZimDeF’s secret codes to order a bank transfer into their business accounts.
In Zimbabwe, she is a business lady, owning MaffKett Private Limited Company and Primkett Travel and Tours. The two firms operate at Joina City in Harare.
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Detectives probing the case have reportedly established that Mwangi’s associates are part of an organized hacking syndicate that gained access to ZimDeF’s computer systems. They include Gerald Pondai and Prosper Hove, who are still at large.
Using ZimDeF’s codes, the hackers ordered the banks controlling ZimDeF’s finances to transfer large sums of money to their own private accounts.
Fortunately, out of the stolen Sh. 14.8 billion, Sh. 3.7 million was recovered when they noticed the large transaction and immediately reversed it.
A whistleblower made details of the fraud known to ZimDeF on December 28th, 2022 in an official email.
State Prosecutor Mr. Mupasa told the court that the accused accessed ZimDeF’s data system and got access to ZB Bank and CBZ accounts of ZimDeF.
Primrose Mwangi and her hacking syndicate transferred Sh. 2,474,000,000 to Mwangi’s MaffKett Trading Steward Bank Account.
Allegedly, Mwangi purchased cooking oil in bulk using the money transferred into MaffKett Trading.
In addition to fraud charges, Primrose Mwangi is also being charged for violating her tourist visa, which allowed her to stay in the country as a tourist. She went contrary to the law and conducted business unlawfully.
She remains in Zimbabwe in custody pending a ruling on her bail application.
