Court charges accused in BancABC 'stolen' million
Mpho Mokwape | Friday September 27, 2019 12:01
The bank instituted legal proceedings before court earlier this year through the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) against the accused persons and companies involved in the theft, which led to the seizure of the involved accounts and properties.
The accused persons, Trevor Boiteko, Omphemetse Kedikilwe and Mooketsi Kedikilwe appeared before court on Tuesday. The trio is accused of acting together and stealing US$ 2, 064 239.49 about P20 million belonging to BancABC.
According to the charge sheet they face theft contrary to section 264 read with section 271 of the Penal Code.
Particulars of the offence is that, the trio in their own personal capacity together with a company Waltord Holdings represented by Omphemetse as its director and another one Boldmark Engineering represented by Mooketsi as its director between October 9, 2018 and January 10, 2019 acted together and stole the money from the bank.
The trio were read the charge sheet before the court as it was a fresh matter and their plea reserved until the next mention.
In the court documents, seven bank accounts ranging from P4, 140,337.09, R2, 620,719.49, P10, 418.94, USD 277,148.99, P29, 009.04, P158, 883.17, P13, 418.62 and three vehicles being Audi A3, Toyota Toyo ace and Toyota Land Cruiser have all been seized.
The background of the case is that BancABC had on February 12, 2019 performed reconciliation in their treasury department where officials were able to pick an anomaly showing that the money has been removed from the Citibank, but without clear indication of where the money had been transferred to.
Upon analysis of the transactions, it was realised that there was a transaction which effected on Oct 9, 2018 indicating that Boiteto had fixed the sum of USD 2,000,000 as the amount was fixed by an entity known as Untu Holdings held by the bank for period of 10 days. It revealed that the bank officials picked that in subsequent days, there were many transactions performed by Boiteto involving different companies.
Further, according to the documents, the money was actually fixed by various entities amongst them Untu Holdings, Kgori Capital, Boldmark Engineering and upon maturity was credited to Fleming Asset Management Botswana account and remained therein and that all transactions to various entities were done from Fleming Asset Management account.
It was revealed that at the time Fleming Asset received the USD 2,000,694.44, it only had a credit balance of USD 668.73 and not received any other credit from any other source. “Notwithstanding that Kgori Capital and Untu Holdings were said to be the ones giving instructions for fixed deposits, no instructions were given by any of these entities for fixing of the money or dealing with it anyhow.
There was similarly no instructions given by Fleming Asset Management for either creation of fixed deposits or any payments or disbursements in respect of the money from its account,” reads the document.
Accordingly, investigations were said to have revealed Boiteto was the kingpin and the mastermind who created the scheme and gave all the instructions for the creation of fixed deposits and for the disbursements made in respect of the money and from all the accounts.
Boldmark Engineering, which was picked as the final destination for money transferred by Boiteto and belongs to Mooketsi Kedikilwe reportedly operated two accounts with BancABC, and said that at all times material to the credit of matured fixed deposits from Fleming Asset Management Account to the said accounts, both Boldmark Engineering accounts were on zero balance.
At the end of investigations, DPP has charged the trio and only two companies despite earlier court documents revealing that more companies were involved in transacting of the stolen money. Attorneys Unoda Mack and Kabo Motswagole represent the accused persons and their next mention is November 5, 2019.