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Nyore Madzianike Senior Court Reporter
Businessman Genius Kadungure, who is accused of defrauding the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) of nearly US$58 665 after he allegedly undervalued a Bentley he imported from South Africa, was due to spend last night in remand prison after the ruling on his bail application was deferred to today.

Harare regional magistrate Mr Crispen Mberewere deferred his decision after the State, led by Mr George Manokore and Ms Sheila Mupindu, opposed bail arguing that Kadungure was likely to re-offend and interfere with investigations.

To add force to that argument, the State called the investigating officer in the matter, Detective Chief Inspector Erasmus Mashawidza, to testify to that effect.

Det Chief Insp Mashawidza told the court that if freed, Kadungure was likely to interfere with investigations to be carried out in South Africa.

There was also a second car being checked as during investigations, police learnt that Zimra had seized Kadungure’s recently imported Ferrari.

Kadungure, through his lawyer Mr Sylvester Hashiti, who was acting on Mr Jonathan Samukange’s instructions, told the court that he was a proper candidate for bail as had been exhibited by his previous conduct on other pending court   cases.

He accused the police of impounding his Bentley, which he said was also in violation of a High Court order.

Kadungure said there was a court order that says his Bentley should not be seized or forfeited.

But Det Chief Insp Mashawidza told the court that the police took the car as an exhibit and were not in violation of the said court order as that only concerned Zimra and the Ministry of Finance.

Zimra is being represented by Mr Lovemore Chigwanda in the matter.

Circumstances leading to Kadungure’s arrest are that last year he went to LSM Distributors (Private) Limited, trading as Bentley Johannesburg, in Melrose and bought a Bentley for R3 281 784.

When he arrived at Beitbridge Border Post, he allegedly connived with his agent, Mr Alexander Gumbo, and forged the vehicle’s value to read as R1 900 000.

They allegedly scanned the forged documents before uploading them on the Zimra Ascuda system for duty processing on December 22 last year.

Zimra Beitbridge then acted upon the misrepresentation to charge duty amounting to US$81 000 instead of US$139 665, leading to an actual prejudice of US$58 665.