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Prosper Dembedza Court Correspondent
One of the bosses of a suspected pyramid scheme arrested recently for contravening the Banking Act after allegedly operating their money laundering business in Harare and Kwekwe, was granted bail by a Harare magistrate yesterday.

Richard Boutros Samunda, who was working with Bevern Dzinoenda and Ambrose Chikukwa, who are still at large, was granted $18 000 bail after being charged for violating the Banking Act, with a prejudice to the State of US$2 million.

Dzinoenda and Chikukwa ran a company called Bevern Capital (Pvt) Limited in Harare and Kwekwe, where they were taking deposits from people in promise of 50 percent returns in six weeks, something impossible in business unless a fast growing base of depositors allows older depositors to be paid out from new deposits, with no actual wealth being generated.

But any taking of deposits from the public requires licensing under the Banking Act.

The State told the court in the bail hearing that Samunda was likely to interfere with investigations, which were still at an early stage.

In his bail application, Samunda told the court that he was only a security person at Bevern Capital and had nothing to do with his employers’ day-to-day running of the business.

He said he was not a flight risk since he owned his home in Belvedere.

Circumstances leading to Samunda’s arrest were that last year, acting in connivance with Dzinoenda and Chikukwa, he formed Bevern Capital for purposes of accepting deposits from people and investing the money into an unknown enterprise.

The trio, through their company, would return the money to the depositors after six weeks with a 50 percent                                     interest.

On August 14 this year, the Reserve Bank, which is the sole regulator of banking institutions’ activities, received information to the effect that Bevern Capital was taking deposits from people.

Investigations by the RBZ revealed that the trio, through their company, were not registered either under the Banking Act or the Micro-Finance Act.

The court heard that on the same date, police raided Bevern Capital’s offices in Milton Park, Harare, and found the premises closed.

The police were said to have noted that Samunda had dismissed nearly 200 people from the place after being informed that police were looking for him.