Kenyan national Primrose Nyeri Mwangi hacks into Zimdef database, takes $20million

A KENYAN national yesterday appeared at the Harare Magistrates Court charged with hacking the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef) systems and syphoning $20 million from its bank account.

Primrose Nyeri Mwangi (40), who is also the director of Primkett Travels, appeared before magistrate Stanford Mambanje facing fraud charges.

He was denied bail and returns to court today.

The complainant in the case is Zimdef.

According to the State, in December last year, Mwangi allegedly connived with Gerald Pondai and Prosper Hove, who are still at large, and hacked into the Zimdef database.

They allegedly accessed its bank accounts.

The trio allegedly used the Zeepay ZimSwitch system and transferred $20 million from Zimdef into Maffkett Trading’s Steward Bank account.

They further transferred various amounts into Atrier Engineering CBZ Bank, Newplaces (Pvt) Limited NBS Bank and Tavaka Holdings accounts.

The offence came to light on December 28 when the complainant received an email alerting them of the transactions.

hmetro