A human resources manager was arrested after creating fake employee accounts to defraud three companies.
Tinashe Madzima appeared in court on Tuesday to face fraud charges. He was released on $300 bail. According to the Public Prosecutor, Mr Rufaro Chonzi, Mazima approached her employer, Livetouch Investments Private Limited, with a proposal to provide loans to workers through microfinance companies.
Despite the company agreeing to the idea, Madzima allegedly deviated and created eight fake workers to defraud Probfix Financial Services, the Herald reported.
Mazima also went to microfinance companies Mountfin Finance and Ergoflex Finance, and successfully applied for loans for the eight ghost workers using the same documents.
On July 9, the court also heard that Mazima drafted a fake board resolution and memorandum of understanding documents, copying the signatures of company chairman Feng Wang and CEO Dongning Wang without their knowledge.
He also created a fake date stamp to authenticate the documents.
Madzima successfully applied for loans for 18 legitimate workers of the company and pocketed the funds.
The scam was uncovered on October 11 when microfinance companies approached Livetouch Investments about loan repayments to ghost workers.